


I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I NEEDED

by orphan_account



Category: Cow Chop
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, brunet aleks&trevor, essentially they live in the cow chop house w small additions, havin gay sexual dreams abt your brofriend is normal, its also... Nicer u know, lots of appreciation for my boy james sorry!!, lotsa gay thoughts and timeskips, mentioned boners, not with mold n shit, right fellas???, weird allusions to strawberries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2018-12-17 03:19:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11842887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Aleks has survived one year of college already. He'll live through this year, too.But last year, Aleks didn't have a very attractive housemate that also ended up being his best friend.Looks like Aleks will die this year.[ college au ]





	1. 01 / BEGINNINGS

College.

 

A place for education. Or, as Oxford Dictionary says:

 

_ An organized group of professional people with particular aims, duties, and privileges. _

 

To Aleks, this definition is almost laughable. The words that were the most entertaining in that definition would most likely have to be ‘organized’ and ‘professional’. There were definitely many professional groups of students at his college, but more often than not, Aleks would watch one of said professional students stand over a trash can in his old dormitory building, vomiting their guts out after one especially wild frat party.

 

Aleks also found the ‘particular aims’ quite amusing, as he was just about to start his second year with barely anything in mind of what the fuck he was actually going to do with his life. He had until the end of this year to decide, so he wasn’t completely fucked just yet. 

 

His first year of college wasn’t too bad, if Aleks was honest. He had made some friends, he didn’t fail any of his classes, he didn’t spiral into any sort of depressive state, he had a minimal amount of about three panic attacks. It wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t good. The word that he’s looking for is mediocre. But that was last year, and he has no idea if this year will be any better. He has a week until school starts, and Aleks is currently working on moving. 

 

He was planning on living in the dormitory buildings that the college offers (usually for freshmen), but then his friend, Brett offered to move in with him and a couple of Brett’s friends. Aleks reluctantly said yes, because he didn’t know any of his friends, besides Asher, who was in Aleks’ algebra class last year. They had a total of about three conversations, but Asher seemed alright enough. 

 

Brett had mentioned that there were three other guys, not counting Asher and Aleks, that were going to live with them. Aleks hopes that they aren’t assholes or anything. Brett didn’t say much about them, aside from their names and what year they were in. It was pretty late when Brett had given him the offer, but Aleks thinks their names were Trevor, Joe, and James.

 

As soon as he had gotten to his new living space, Brett had directed him to his new room, which would be upstairs. Aleks really wasn’t up for moving his bags and boxes and shit from out of the front parlor yet, so he procrastinated by giving himself his very own house tour. It was a rather simple house. It looked nice enough, and it was close by campus so his classes would be easily accessible. There was nobody else there at the time he arrived, besides Brett, who had already settled into the bedroom nearest to the stairs (which was the largest bedroom upstairs, for your information). 

 

There were two other rooms upstairs, which made Aleks wonder where the other people were to sleep, but he didn’t think too much of it. The last two rooms were both carpeted, and only one had been occupied with two suitcases and a backpack. Aleks took a look at his own room, which wasn’t all that bad, despite the faux hardwood flooring that was trying way too hard to look like real wood. There was a bedframe in the corner already, similar to the other rooms he saw. He was thankful for that part, so he wouldn’t have to bring that shit up the stairs. 

 

Details of the second floor of the house (or the first floor. It depends how you see it, but it’s the middlest layer of a three floor house) will be spared, since it wasn’t all too interesting. It was pretty bare. He found the garage, and it was surprisingly a much nicer looking garage compared to other garages he’s seen. There was a ‘room’ of sorts to the right of the front parlor, connecting to the other side of the kitchen. It had a washer and dryer in the room, but that’s all there was to it. There was a backyard, too– literally nothing fucking interesting about it. 

 

Next, he decided to go downstairs, because he isn’t too sure of what would be down there. Apparently, somebody’s bedroom. There was a bed against the furthest wall in the middle with plain black covers. A nightstand stood to the left of the bed with a phone lying face down on it. There was a desk in the corner with a chair, a computer set up on it as well. There was one door on the farthest wall, and another on the same wall where the stairs were. He walked a little further into the room, and then he hears the door to the basement open, and that’s what has lead him up to right now.

 

He figures it’s just Brett or something, but when he turns around, he sees… Not Brett. He’s tan and probably a few inches taller than Aleks. His dark hair is tied up in a bun that is definitely working for him (in Aleks’ loosely heterosexual opinion). He has a scruffy-looking beard that fits him very well, as well as incredibly dark eyes, which looks– Aleks doesn’t quite know how to put this– soft, possibly? He’s just wearing a t-shirt and jeans (as well as some ugly ass skater shoes) and Aleks thinks that he’s probably one of the most attractive men that Aleks has seen.  _ Damn _ .

 

“I’m guessing you’re Aleks?” Not Brett asks, his voice low, but rather loud. Aleks nods, too busy attempting to sort his gay ( _? _ ) thoughts together to respond verbally. “Cool, I’m James. I guess we’re gonna be housemates.”

 

“Yeah.” Aleks says, thinking to himself how good of an reply that was. He realizes that he’s standing in James’ room probably unwarranted after he glances around the somewhat barren room (it’s less barren than his own, at least). “Oh, sorry for bothering you. I was just looking around, I didn’t even think that there would be a room down here.”

 

“It’s fine. As long as you weren’t looking through my shit, or anything.” James shrugs, looking directly at Aleks and Aleks decides he should probably leave, because he feels a bit flustered, but that also makes him frustrated, since nobody makes  _ Aleksandr Marchant  _ flustered.

  
“Okay, well.” Aleks looks down at the ground, shoving his hands into the pockets of his khakis. Normally, Aleks wouldn’t be so timid, but with this  _ rather attractive stranger  _ staring at him with depthless dark eyes has him feeling like he’s back in his hermit days. But, he’s better than that. He’s changed, so fuck this guy. “I guess I’ll be seeing you around, uh, James. Nice meeting you.” He says, and walks back up the stairs. As soon as he shuts the door, he rubs his face and walks to the front parlor, where all of his unmoved shit remains.  _ Holy fuck _ . He takes a moment to himself, before he starts his moving process.


	2. 02 / SOMEWHAT SOBER PARTY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just for a reference
> 
> trevor: freshman  
> aleks and asher: sophomores  
> james and joe: juniors  
> brett: senior
> 
> also, funhaus and AH are nicknames for different houses on the campus
> 
> enjoy :)

Day five of the second year of college: done! Not even worried about it one bit. It’s all good.

 

All. Good.

 

No, in all honesty, Aleks still has a little bit of his soul left from his first week at college. He figures as long as he keeps his shit together and has enough caffeine to kill somebody, he can survive.

 

He met the rest of his housemates, and they were actually pretty good. There was Joe, who was very kind, but he found it a little weird that his ‘room’ was the garage. Joe said he didn’t care, but Aleks just guesses he was just being nice. At least when Aleks saw it, it was a clean garage. Then, there was Trevor, who was only a freshman, but he apparently was good buddies with Asher. There was Asher, and when Brett had introduced Asher to him, Aleks was 99% sure that Asher didn’t remember who he was, but then Asher seemed to remember after some uncomfortable silence. There was Brett, who was still Brett. Then there was James. Aleks had talked to him more (he felt somewhat more confident this time around, like he usually does) during dinner, when Brett would make the house members all have dinner together, for whatever reason. Nobody minded, since Brett was making it and it was free food: a college kid’s dream come true.

 

So, overall, it wasn’t that bad. Aleks hasn’t died yet, so he’d consider that a win. It was a Friday night, and Aleks must be getting old already, because he was planning on just going to sleep after his classes were over. As soon as he got home, he threw his shirt off and fell asleep. He managed to get a good 3 hours of sleeping in, before Brett interrupted his slumber with Trevor following suit.

 

“Wake up, sleepyhead.” Aleks opens his eyes to see Brett leaning over him, slapping his face in the purpose of waking him up. “We’re gonna go to Funhaus. They’re throwing a party.” Aleks sits up, leaning back on his right forearm and rubbing at his eye to adjust quicker to his surroundings.

 

“Like Kovic and Bruce?” Aleks says, looking over to Trevor, who was standing in the doorway of his room. “Hey Trevor.” he greets him and Trevor waves, that weird grin he gets is now visible, spreading across his face. Aleks can hear faint footsteps outside of his room and sees James pop up next to Trevor.

 

“Yo, Brett. What time are we gonna leave?” James asks, his eyes focusing on Brett before taking a quick yet noticeable once over of Aleks, who suddenly remembers that he’s shirtless. 

 

“Depends when this fucker decides to get up. Or if.” Brett looks back to Aleks, who thinks about it for a second.  _ Fuck it _ .

 

“Sure, I’ll go. Give me like… ten minutes?” Aleks estimates how long it’ll take for him to get his shit together and sits up from his bed, stretching properly now. Brett stands up and begins to file out, along with Trevor. James stays where he is, but the Russian doesn’t mind it. 

 

“You’ll need longer than ten minutes to not look like shit.” James says, but Aleks can tell it was a joke by the smile on James’ face. He stands up and pulls on the shirt he had on earlier.

 

“Fuck you, I look great.” Aleks responds, gesturing down to himself. 

 

“Uh huh.” 

 

“Aren’t you like, sixty or something? Don’t you have a horse race to go to instead of a college party?” Aleks leans over his bed and searches for his phone, which had probably been shoved to the depths of hell when he fell asleep. He finds it at the foot of his bed, picking it up and placing it in his pocket.

 

“Horse races are actually fun, and I don’t see why you’re making fun of me. How much money have you spent into playing CS:GO again?” James had asked while Aleks searched around for his phone. Aleks thinks about how easily they became friends after their first awkward conversation in James’ room.

 

“Leave me alone.”   
  


“James!” Trevor calls from downstairs as Aleks hears something fall over and James sighs.

 

“It’d be best to go help your son. I gotta take a piss.” Aleks says, walking past James to the bathroom. He listens to James’ footsteps down the stairs, and then James shouts,  _ why’d you call me for this _ , and he faintly hears Trevor reply,  _ ‘cause you’d help me _ , and Aleks grins. 

 

*******

 

Brett offered that he would drive them all, but it was a group decision to just walk instead, because chances are, are that Brett would be too fucked up to drive and it wasn’t that far of a walk anyways. 

 

When they arrive to Funhaus, it was already pretty fucking wild, although it was just nine. Joe is already gone, and he sees Asher walk into the crowd, and then he’s gone too. Brett turns to Trevor.

 

“Okay, don’t break anything, or else they’ll probably make you do a keg stand.” Brett says over the loud music.

 

“I don’t think they’d be able to lift me up to do that.” Trevor says, a little amused.

 

“You’re like, eleven years old, Trevor. You shouldn’t know what a keg stand is.” James hits him on the back and Trevor coughs. Aleks notices that that’s apparently a thing– Trevor gagging, or coughing, or fake vomiting.

 

“I don’t think you have to worry about that, Trevor.” Aleks points over to James Willems. “His arms are probably bigger than Joe altogether.”   
  
“He could probably kill me.” Trevor looks in the direction of Aleks pointing, who looks a little surprised. “Jesus, are you sure he’s in college?” James laughs at Trevor. 

 

“You wanna go meet him, Trevyboy?” James asks, apparently forgetting the fact that Trevor is now eleven years of age.

 

“Uh,” Trevor manages to say before James leads him to meet other James (or as some just call him to prevent confusion, Willems). It was just Brett and Aleks now.

 

“So,” Aleks turns to Brett. “The booze has to be in the kitchen, right?”

 

“Who the fuck says ‘booze’, anymore, Aleks? Fuckin’ scrub.” Brett pushes him gently as he walks towards the kitchen with Aleks following.

 

“Fuck off.” Brett ignores him as he finds two beers and hands one to Aleks. They both take a rather large drink of their essentially concentrated wheat juice. 

 

They’ve both had about three beers, which wasn’t too bad, but they’ve definitely been talking awhile. Aleks thinks about how redundant this is, since they literally live in the same house and they can talk pretty much anytime they’d like. 

 

“How’s senior year going so far, old man?” Aleks brings up the topic of education at a fucking party. Yeah, apparently, he’s  _ that  _ type of person. 

 

“We’re at a party and you wanna talk about my classes?” Brett laughs.   
  
“Have you always been this judgemental, or have I just been gone for too long?”

 

“Too long, my friend.” The older nods, taking another sip. “Fuck talking about classes, though. What’ve you been doing?” 

 

Aleks clears his throat. “Not much, you know. Before I left, I got a pretty sick watch for my birthday–”

 

“Holy shit, right! Your birthday!” Brett interrupts Aleks and he immediately leaves. Aleks doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing, so, out of confusion, he follows Brett, calling after him. Brett either doesn’t hear him, or just ignores him. 

 

Aleks can see two specific figures in the direction that Brett is heading towards, and Aleks doesn’t know whether or not to fear for his life or not. Bruce and Kovic. Then, Willems walks up to them as well and Aleks knows he should already disappear or something. Aleks really doesn’t feel like getting too fucked up tonight– usually he would, but he just…  _ isn’t feeling it _ . But, it’s too late and Bruce starts calling for Aleks. He knows he can see him, since he’s looking right at Aleks. He can either run and hide or accept his fate of probably being forced to do some sort of alcohol related ‘celebration’. He figures they’d probably find him, so he will try and make some half assed excuse instead.

 

“Aleks! Hey!” Bruce grins when he finally walks over to them, throwing a rather sweaty arm around Aleks. “Heard it was your birthday, buddy!”

 

“Yeah, like two weeks ago–”

  
“We got around to it! Anyways, we wanna do something for you.” Bruce offers, and Trevor and Joe walk up to them to see what was going on. Aleks wonders where James is, but Aleks thinks that he shouldn’t care that much.

 

“Stripper?” Aleks asks.

 

“No!” Bruce shouts, giggling as if he was a child, yet in reality he was an actual adult. 

 

“We have a six year old with us, remember?” Brett says, gesturing to Trevor.

 

“I thought he was eleven.” 

 

“They grow up so fast!” Brett wipes a fake tear, finishing the rest of his beer and Aleks realizes he left his beer in the kitchen. Oh well. Maybe it was a sign. Before Aleks can correct Brett’s incorrect aging process, Kovic speaks up.

 

“We were thinking of a keg stand, actually. For the birthday boy!” Kovic pats him on the back,  _ hard _ . Aleks dies.  _ Why is Funhaus so fucking strong _ ?

 

“Do you guys have any actual original ideas besides doing keg stands?” Aleks groans.

 

“Keg stands work for everything!” Willems defends their shitty ideas and Bruce and Kovic agree.

 

“Birthdays, punishments, exam week, cult groups, weddings,” Bruce lists off.

 

“Funerals, or just for the sake of binge drinking.” Kovic adds and Bruce makes a noise of agreement. Aleks tries to think of an excuse, and then sees little boy Trevor.

 

“Well, there’s a little boy right here, who’s never done a keg stand before. Isn’t that right, Trevor?” Aleks smiles, and Trevor looks, to say the least, like a deer in the headlights of multiple rowdy college boys. “I think I should pass my birthday all around, right? Trevor deserves some, too.”

 

“Yeah!” Willems immediately agrees, and Kovic and Bruce do as well apparently. “You’ll have to do shots later, though.” Willems glares at Aleks, who nods. He can do that.

 

“Man, I’m only nine years old.” Trevor says.

 

“If you’re gonna make this joke, at least keep the age consistent.” Aleks whines, feeling only slightly guilty for making Trevor do this. In all honesty, Trevor could have just said ‘no’ and Aleks could have pinned it on Joe instead (because Joe would just agree anyways, because he is a pure and kind soul). 

 

“Careful, his dad is around. Hopefully he doesn’t get too pissed.” Brett says, and everybody already knows who Brett’s referencing to.

 

“Let’s go!” Willems throws one of his Joe-sized arms around Trevor’s shoulders and leads him away, Bruce letting go of Aleks and walking off with Kovic as well. Joe follows, and then it’s just Brett and him again.

  
“Well, your plan worked real well, you fuck.” Aleks chuckles.

 

“Fuck you. I wanna go watch him, though. Are you coming?” Brett asks, and he shakes his head. He wants some fresh air.

 

“I’m gonna head outside quick.” He points to the front door and Brett nods, leaving him in the crowd. Aleks heads off to the kitchen to go and grab his beer, but the bottle feels a lot heavier than it did when he put it down, so he decides to get a different one instead. Safer, probably. 

 

He then maneuvers his way outside.  _ So much for conversing with people, Aleks _ . Aleks scolds himself as he notices the male sitting on the porch steps. He can tell by the bun that it’s James. Aleks wonders if James would ever put his hair down, and how it would look. He shuffles over and sits next to James, who looks up from all the sudden noise around him.

 

“So, you came here to just sit out here for half an hour?” Aleks starts off, thinking how fucking dumb that was to say.

 

“I could ask the same for you, you know.” James replies, looking out onto the empty street in front of them. “I just realized why I didn’t go to parties last year.”

 

“Why’s that?” Aleks drinks from his recently opened beer.

 

“‘Cause it’s gross. Everyone’s all sweaty and shit, and mostly everyone is drunk.” He explains.

 

“Did you think it’d be different this year?” Aleks chuckles a little, staring at the side of James’ face probably a little creepily.

 

“I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I’ll just go into retirement.” 

 

“You’re like, twenty.” 

 

“I’m sixty, remember?” James looks back to him, smiling. Aleks doesn’t understand why this guy is so attractive to him. 

 

“Eh, only forty years off.” Aleks shrugs, smiling back. He takes another sip of his beer as James scoots further to the right to lean against the railing of the stairs. Neither of them say anything for a moment before James speaks again.

 

“So, what’re you doing out here? You don’t seem like the type to leave a party after 30 minutes.” 

 

“Well, James, you’ve known me for about a week, so I don’t know how you know what kind of ‘type’ I am.” Aleks responds in a teasing tone. “Nah, I’m kidding. I’m usually not that ‘type’, but I just wanted some fresh air, I guess.” 

 

James just nods his head. Aleks doesn’t know what to say, or if he should say anything. It’s not an uncomfortable silence, but Aleks just wants to talk to the older male more. 

 

“Uh, how’s it going?” Aleks stumbles out, and James looks back at him before laughing. “What?”

 

“Is that how you start a conversation?” He giggles.

 

“I don’t think I wanna start one now that you’re laughing at me, asshole.” Aleks answers, laughing a bit himself. 

 

“Small talk is fucking dumb.” James starts, his laughter dying down to where he’s just smiling now. “You don’t have to start a conversation with some meaningless question that’ll obviously just be responded with ‘good’, or something along the lines of that.”

 

“So do you just start conversations like, ‘How is your family life at home?’ and it goes from there?” 

 

“Probably something that’s a little lighter.”

 

“Small talk is shit, but so is heavy talk?”

 

“ _ Heavy talk _ ?” James repeats, grinning. “Normal talk is good.”

 

“What’s an example of your ‘normal talk’?” Aleks asks and James takes a pause before responding.

 

“How’d you meet Brett?” 

 

“Through my old roommate. I went to a party, and then my roommate introduced me to him. We were both totally fucking drunk, but we became good friends.”

 

“Who was your roommate?”

 

“Wow, lots of questions.” 

 

“Shut the fuck up.”

 

“My roommate was Steven Suptic.”

 

“Is he friends with that Cib guy?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Oh, I know him.” 

 

“How did  _ you  _ meet Brett?” Aleks asks.

 

“Back when I was a sex worker.”

 

“Really?”   
  


“No. I met him when I was a freshman when he stopped Joe from getting mugged or something.”

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“Yeah, we were in the city and I left to go get something and then Joe just got like, attacked and Brett showed up out of nowhere. You can ask either of them.” James shrugs.

 

“That’s fucked up.”

 

“I guess? Joe’s still alive, so it’s whatever.”

 

It’s quiet again. Well, not quiet. It’s loud from the inside of the house, but out here, it seems much fainter than it actually is. Aleks can hear Brett shout, ‘ _ Aleksandr _ !’ which is even louder than the music blasting out. Brett screams again and Aleks stands up.

 

“Your full name is Aleksandr?” James asks, amused.

 

“Yeah. I gotta go see what Brett wants. Wanna come with?” He offers, smoothing out his shirt from sitting.

 

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks for talking with me,  _ Aleksandr _ . See you around.” James smiles at him and Aleks has to leave  _ now _ . Usually he hates it when people call him by his full name– so why is it different now? Aleks gives James this weird ass half smile before walking back inside and drinking the rest of his beer.  _ Fuck _ .

 

*******

 

It’s been like, three hours since Aleks had walked into the house. He wasn’t drunk still– he was at the line of sober and tipsy, even after the multiple shots that Willems and Brett made him take. He saw James come back into the house after a bit, too. He hadn’t seen Asher the entire time, he saw Joe around a few times, and Trevor was dead fucking drunk. At this point, anyone who didn’t even know Trevor could have taken a wild guess to say that Trevor has never drank anything alcoholic before in his life, and having the first time he drank be because of a keg stand was probably not helping either. 

 

Currently, Aleks is talking with Willems and Kovic when Trevor bumps into him.

 

“Aleks.” Trevor says, blinking. “Hello.”

 

“Hey, there, buddy. How’re you feeling?” Aleks asks, placing a hand on his back to stabilize him.

 

“Where’s James?” Trevor asks as Brett shows up behind Trevor.

 

“We have to go.” Brett says to Aleks.

 

“Why?” He questions and looks to Trevor, who was currently trying to speak to Kovic about Thor. 

 

“Trevor got Michael from AH super fucking pissed.” 

  
“Michael Jones?” Brett nods. Aleks sighs. “Fuck. We should probably find the other guys. I’ll bring Trevor to the front.” He says and Brett heads off to find the others. Joe was already nearby, so he helps Aleks lead Trevor outside. James apparently sees them because he appears on Aleks’ side.

 

“What the fuck happened to him?” James asks, referencing to Trevor, obviously.

 

“The Funhaus guys made him do a keg stand.” Aleks says, not mentioning that it was pretty much Aleks’ fault. 

 

“Wasn’t it you that volunteered him?” Joe says from the other side of Trevor.

 

“Oh, so it was you who got him like this?” James accuses Aleks, nudging him a bit as Joe opens the front door. They all walk outside, Joe ushering Trevor out the door and down the steps and Aleks making sure he didn’t fall.

 

“Maybe.” Aleks feels somewhat guilty, but James doesn’t seem all that upset and Trevor was probably going to get drunk anyways. Aleks just helped that process. After a few minutes, Brett shows up with Asher, and Aleks can smell the weed on him already.

 

“Jesus, Asher. Take a fucking shower when we get home.” James basically shouts as he pulls the collar of his shirt over his nose.

 

“It’s not even my fault.” Asher starts, but he doesn’t finish his sentence and looks at the Funhaus mailbox. Trevor begins to hum the national anthem. “That’s.. uh... Game of Thrones theme song, right?” Asher asks.

 

“Let’s go.” Brett orders and they all start walking, Trevor tripping every so often. Trevor and Asher start a game where one person hums and the other person has to guess. Asher keeps guessing the Game of Thrones theme song, and he’s been wrong every single time so far. They arrive home and Brett helps Trevor up to his bed, Joe leads Asher into the bathroom so he can shower, and Aleks goes into the kitchen to get a Gatorade, water and some pills for Trevor. 

 

James comes into the kitchen and grabs a water as well, opening it and drinking from it. Aleks gets distracted by watching James drink  _ fucking water _ before returning to his task. James leans against the kitchen counter, and Aleks can feel James’ eyes on his back.

 

“So you got Trevor drunk?” James asks (it was more of a statement, though) when Aleks gets the shit he needed.

 

“Kind of? I mean, he could have prevented it if he really didn’t want to.” The Russian says, shrugging. “They were gonna make me do a keg stand, ‘cause it was my birthday, like two weeks ago and I didn’t want to, so I offered for Trevor to do it.”

 

“It was your birthday?” That was apparently the only thing that James had heard in that sentence. Aleks just nods. “Cool. Well, happy late birthday.” He says, and pushes himself off the counter.

 

“Thanks.” He manages to say in response. His face feels warm again.

 

“Yeah. Goodnight, Aleksandr.” James walks past Aleks and down the stairs.

 

As Aleks walks up the stairs and towards the intoxicated boy’s room, all Aleks can think is  _ ‘Fuck’ _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed reading!
> 
> have a fantastic day <3
> 
> x


	3. 03 / CRISES AND TV SHOWS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i learned that the plural word of crisis is crises because of the chapter title wow, go me

One month of second year of college: done! Very tired, but done.

 

Nothing incredibly drastic happened. He’s pretty sure that nobody he knows died. Classes are… fine. He’s alive, too. Nothing much to complain about.

 

James bought a couch. He made Trevor and Aleks move it in while he went to one of his classes. Before, it was just the TV and a shelf beneath it, and Joe would sit on the ground to watch the news. Aleks would join him sometimes, and so would Asher on the occasion. It was calming, to wake up and hang out with Joe. He didn’t talk a lot when watching the news, but it was a comfortable silence that Aleks finds himself in much more often than he used to when hanging out Joe, or even James.

 

But the couch that James bought was nice, and Trevor almost broke it when they were moving it in. James had casually mentioned that it was 200 dollars, since it was custom made. It was cow printed, and Aleks didn’t know why he had decided cow printed of all things, but Aleks thought it was pretty cool looking, so he didn’t say anything.

 

Not much else has happened aside from that. After that party, Aleks found himself talking to James even more often, and he finds himself enjoying spending time with James. Aleks just guesses that it was because James was pretty cool and funny, and they were becoming considerably good friends. Aleks hasn’t thought about how incredibly attractive his friends are like he does with James, though. And about a week ago, Aleks and James were sitting on the couch, watching some random movie and Aleks made some shitty joke, and then James laughed and Aleks was thinking about kissing him, and that thought alone made his stomach feel weird. 

 

Then, about fifteen minutes ago, Brett asked Aleks to go downstairs to wake him up because breakfast would be ready in about forty five minutes, and Aleks went downstairs to see James sleeping soundly. He felt incredibly creepy by watching him sleep so he threw a pillow at him and told him to wake up. James did wake up, and his fucking  _ hair was down _ and Aleks felt himself dying for some reason. He looked so incredibly good and Aleks really wanted to touch it, but that would  _ definitely _ be weird so he just blurted out that they were gonna eat soon and ran back upstairs and went to his room, strangely flustered. He felt the blood going to his face, as well as other places– and decided to take a nice cold shower before eating and going on with the day. That’s what’s lead up to him sitting on the ground of the shower/bathtub, cold water falling down on his head.

 

Aleks has only dated one person before– Her name was Geneva. Aleks met her in his freshman year of high school and dated her for one year before he found out that she was cheating on him with a girl in Aleks’ biology class. Aleks gained a sudden disinterest in dating (as well as falling into a state of heartbroken and sadness for about six months, but it’s whatever) and all things alike. He’s had sex at a whopping total of seven times, with Geneva but as well with drunken one night stands with girls after particularly stupid college parties. Aleks can’t think of any guy he’s had a romantic (or sexual) attraction to before, so he hasn’t actually taken the time to think about the fact if he’s in some way, Not Heterosexual™. That thought doesn’t matter much to him, if he isn’t straight, but the fact that he might  _ possibly _ have a crush on one of his housemates that he’s known for only a month is the part that makes him worry.

 

In case it wasn’t obvious, Aleks doesn’t know how to deal with feelings. Or emotions. Or with just about anything. So,  _ hypothetically _ , if he  _ did _ have a crush on James, he wouldn’t know how to deal with it, and he’d probably end up just bottling it up and hoping it goes away in the next month or so. Yeah,  _ if  _ he did have a crush on James, that’s what he would do.

 

“If you’re gonna jack off, at least do it in Brett’s room, like everyone else. You’re wasting water.” Aleks can hear Trevor say from outside of the bathroom over the sound of water. He stands up and shuts off the water, drying himself off before walking over to his room in a towel to change.

 

“Trevor, if you ever jacked off in my room, I’ll fucking kill you.” Brett says from downstairs.

 

“Fine, I guess I’ll have to start doing it in Joe’s.” Trevor says.

 

“What?” Joe asks after a beat of silence, probably not paying attention to their conversation. “Oh, uh, don’t do that, please.”

 

“What about James’?” Asher suggests.

 

“I”ll circumcise you.” James says and Aleks laughs quietly as he walks down the steps.

 

“How do you know I’m circumcised?” Trevor asks as Aleks enters the kitchen and retrieves a water from the fridge. James has his hair up now.

 

“I’ll uncircumcise you.” He says, shrugging.

 

“Why do we have to talk about Trevor’s dick?” Aleks asks, sitting next to Joe on the couch, who was watching the news.

 

“Good morning again. Did you get a good dick session in?” Brett asks, fixated on the stove.

 

“Of course, dude.” 

 

*******

 

It’s a normal Thursday night and Aleks doesn’t have much to do. He thinks about playing a videogame or something, but he decides to go and bother James. He turns the corner to go down to the basement, but sees James sitting on the couch in the living room. He’s watching something on screen, but Aleks can’t tell what is is.

 

“Oh, hey.” Aleks says and James turns to look at him.

 

“Hello.” James greets him as Aleks walks in front of the screen to the other side of the couch and sits down.

 

“What are you watching?” He asks as some guy on screen drives a boat with some sort of monologue going over it. 

 

“Please, have a seat.” James invites him teasingly. “It’s called  _ Dexter _ . I just started watching it. It’s about this forensics scientist guy who kills people, basically.”

 

“Sounds cool.” 

 

“Yeah, it’s right there, on the screen. You can watch it with me, if you want.” James offers, but Aleks was going to do that anyways without the invitation. Aleks looks at him. It’s kind of late so it’s dark outside, and the lights are turned off, so the only thing that made him able to see James was the light from the TV screen. Even then, with the only lighting being the TV, _he still looks good._ _Fuck._

 

“Maybe I will.”

 

Each episode is about an hour, and Aleks and James have gotten through about four episodes. It’s probably nearing one or two in the morning, and Aleks knows he probably should be going to sleep, but he can’t help it. Again, he just likes spending time with his good  _ friend _ , James.

 

“Aw, somebody’s tired.” James observes this when Aleks lays on his back, stretching across the couch, his legs curled up so he isn’t actually touching James, of course.

 

“Fuck off, dude. My bed time was like, eight hours ago.” He mumbles in response, shutting his eyes.

 

“Nah, it’s fine. It’s cute.” James says and Aleks eyes fly open again. It’s completely silent, aside from the sound from the TV.  _ What the fuck did he just say? _ Aleks thinks it could have been one of those verbal typos, or something. Aleks glances at James through the darkness and sees him a little tenser than he has been for the past few hours, as if he had said something he shouldn’t have. Aleks’ stomach feels weird again, and his best guess is that he’s pregnant (listen, it’s his best guess– not the answer). Aleks deems it best to just close his eyes again and listen to the deep tone of Dexter Morgan’s weird monologuing, lulling him into sleep.

 

He wakes up on the couch with the lights and TV turned off and James gone. He sits up, pulling his phone out of his pocket and wincing at the bright screen in contrast to the darkness of his surroundings as he turns it on. The time at the top of his screen reads 5:42 AM. He sees a message from James at 2:20 AM. He opens it and it’s a photo of Aleks, sleeping face down, his face smushing against the couch unattractively. There’s a text attached to it, reading:

 

> _ Gn _

 

Aleks thinks about how sentimental and touching the text is (which, in case you cannot detect sarcasm through written words, it’s not). He smiles, and then goes upstairs to his own bed to go back the fuck to sleep, since he has near 2 whole hours of sleeping before classes start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed reading, and i hope you have a wonderful day <3


	4. 04 / DRUNK NIGHTZ AND RIVER TIME

It’s mid-October now, and again, nothing eventful has happened in the past, say, two and a half weeks. 

 

Aleks and James watch a lot of Dexter together, and both Trevor and Brett tried watching it with them on separate occasions, but neither of them had enjoyed it and left near halfway through. They talk a lot too, and Aleks could consider James as one of his closest friends at this point. He could also say that for the rest of his housemates as well, honestly. He walks to campus with Asher since they’re in the same English Literature class and talk about music and movies. He’ll watch the news with Joe and Trevor, as well as talk with them about their classes and varying topics. Sometimes, they’ll all play videogames together. 

 

Once, when he got drunk with Brett, they sat out in the backyard and threw dying grass at each other. 

 

“You haven’t told me if you’ve fucked anyone recently.” Brett had said after a while of some friendly grass throwing. Aleks raised a brow at the statement.

 

“I didn’t know I had to.” 

 

“You did last year. You would come to me and be like ‘I just had a one night stand with a girl I’ll never talk to or have an emotional connection to!’” Brett says in a high pitched voice to mock Aleks, “and you were so proud, ‘cause you usually never get laid.”

 

“Fuck you.” Aleks muttered, flipping him off as he set another empty beer can down, reaching for another one.

 

“No thanks.” Brett said, and it was dark but Aleks could hear the smile in his voice. 

 

“I haven’t fucked anyone, since you wanted to know so badly.”

 

“Oh.” Brett mumbled. It was quiet for a moment, since Aleks didn’t respond, and instead laid down on the grass. Brett spoke again. “You like anyone, then?” 

 

“No.”

 

“That includes boys, too.” Aleks had taken that sentence into his intoxicated consideration.

 

“What?”

 

“You know what I said, cuck.”

 

“Don’t call me a cuck.”

 

“So is that a yes or no?” Brett asked, and Aleks was honestly too drunk to lie. Except Aleks himself didn’t know the answer himself.

 

“I don’t know.” 

 

“Who are you not knowing about?” 

 

“You ask a lot of questions, huh?” Aleks asked, and it reminded him a little bit of when he talked to James.

 

“And you’re drunk, which means you’ll answer my questions more than you do sober. Besides, I’m drunk too, so that means I probably won’t remember either.” Aleks had taken time to think about what to say, or if to say anything at all. His entire body felt rather warm from intoxication, and his brain felt warm, too. He doesn’t know what he means when he says that his brain felt ‘warm’, but it sounds pretty right– from what he can remember.

 

“I think I might like James.” Aleks had said it out loud for the first time, and his mouth felt weird making the sounds to lead up to that sentence, but it was out in the air now, and Brett didn’t respond right away either.

 

“Which Ja–” Brett begun to ask, but Aleks had interrupted him.

 

“You know which one.”   
  
“Why do you like him?” 

 

Aleks suddenly felt defensive. “ _ I don’t know… _ I like talking to him, and I like spending time with him, and he makes me laugh, and he’s hot, and when he laughs or looks at me, my stomach feels weird but in like, a good way, and I don’t know, I would kiss him if he asked.” Again, Brett stayed quiet.

 

“And you said that you ‘think’ you might like him?” 

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Want to hear my opinion?”

 

“Not particularly, but you’ll tell me anyways.”

 

“You totally like him.”

 

“But I’m not–”

 

“– Gay? Yeah, I know. You could always be, you know, bi.”

 

“Yeah.”   
  
“Do you think either of us will remember this in the morning?”

 

“If we did, we wouldn’t talk about it.”

 

“Yeah, true.” Brett finished the rest of his beer before standing up and grabbing the empty cans from the ground. “I’m going to sleep now.”

 

“Night.” Aleks mumbled, and Brett went inside. Drunk Aleks decided to give himself some more time to think about, well, everything. He thought about what he had said to Brett, although Brett’s response wasn’t informative or helpful (no shit, he could be bi. He  _ knows _ that shit). He really said that, huh? After thinking up more uninspiring things, he got up, bringing the rest of the beer with him and went up the stairs.

  
That morning, Aleks woke up with a hangover and an unsettling feeling because  _ he remembered all of that conversation _ . Hopefully, Brett didn’t remember it at all, or he just would never bring it up, like Drunk Aleks had said to Drunk Brett.

 

It’s been a week or so, and they still haven’t talked about it, and Aleks feels grateful. What he’s not grateful for, though, is having to get up on a Sunday to go to a river, because Joe said a few days ago he wanted to go to a damn river. Joe is wonderful, don’t get him wrong, but  _ what the fuck? _

 

Brett comes into his room, banging two pots together.

 

“Holy shit,” Aleks mutters, sitting up in his bed. He checks the time on his phone to see that it’s  _ seven  _ in the goddamn morning. Aleks was ready to fucking kill Brett. “I know that we were gonna go early, but are you fucking kidding me?”

 

“It’s just going to be you, me, James and Joe because Asher isn’t feeling too good and Trevor fell asleep somewhere downtown and he’s probably dead now. Get up! We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.” Brett says, essentially ignoring him, kicking some dirty clothes in front of Aleks’ doorway out of the way. “Ew.”   
  
“I fucking hate you.” He groans and sits up.

  
“I know. Wear something you probably don’t care about too much. That’s probably easy for you, though.” Brett walks out.

 

When Aleks is done getting ready, he comes down the stairs to see the other three, and Brett making bacon. Joe isn’t watching the news for once, but instead talking to James as James scrolls through his phone. 

 

“Morning again, grumpy pants. Bacon’s gonna be done soon.”  Brett claims as Aleks walks to the fridge and gets a Gatorade. “How’d you sleep?”   
  
“Well, I  _ was _ sleeping great.” He snaps, and Brett turns away from the stove to look at him. “How did you sleep, Brett? You know, after killing all of those innocent puppies and kittens and babies.” James’ laugh rings throughout the kitchen, and Brett turns his back to him, but Aleks saw a grin flash on his face before he turned back around. 

 

_ Excuse me? _

 

*******

 

They reached the river in about thirty minutes, so it was around 7:45 when they had reached the nearest accessible river. The sun had just risen, and it honestly looked pretty fucking cool as Aleks hopped out of the backseat of the car.

 

“That’s fucking dope.” Aleks says as the other three get out of the car. The multiple colors of the sunrise reflects onto the river, as well as onto everything else. James stands next to him and Aleks stops looking at the sun to look at James. 

 

James has this wide smile on his face that he hasn’t seen from James just yet, but it looks so… genuine. In his normally depthless eyes, the sun reflects from them as well, causing them to be a lighter color than usual. Aleks can’t describe how he’s feeling, aside from a strange  _ itch _ in his chest area– well, his heart, to be more specific. Maybe he’s having a heart attack. Oh well.  _ Guess I’ll die. _

 

Brett calls out for him and James to hurry the fuck up, and Aleks looks over to see that Brett and Joe were walking down to the stream. Aleks nudges James and James breaks his eyes away from the sky to look at him. He suddenly doesn’t know what to say, so he just gestures towards the direction of where Joe and Brett were heading.

 

“Okay!” Brett shouts, clapping his hands together once James and Aleks were there.

 

“It’s a cool river.” Joe comments and Aleks looks to Brett.

 

“Is that the only reason we came here?” He asks, unamused, and Brett shakes his head.

 

“Hey, Joe? Did you listen to me when I said to keep the stuff that you care about back in the car?” Brett asks and Joe nods. “Did you do that?” He asks and Joe nods again. Joe begins to ask ‘why’ before Brett picks him up and tosses him into the middle of the river.

 

“Holy shit!” James yells as Joe creates a Joe-size splash in the water. “What if it was super shallow?”

 

“He still probably wouldn’t be able to reach.” Aleks says and James glares at him. At least the current hasn’t become too strong yet, otherwise Joe would be fucking dead. “That’s a gross ass looking river.” He comments, both Brett and James looking over at him. “No, don’t.” Brett begins to walk closer than him. Aleks looks around to see if there was anywhere to run to, but the only actual exit is blocked by James. “Brett, I’m serious! Don’t throw me in, I can go in myself.” Aleks yells, moving out of Brett’s grasp.

 

“Go, then.” Brett and James are both laughing–  _ at least someone was finding this funny _ , Aleks glares at Brett and takes off his shirt. “What the  _ fuck _ are you doing?” Brett asks.

 

“Don’t want my shirt to get wet.” Aleks says, reaching for the zipper of his jeans.

 

“We’re in public, Aleksandr.” James says as Aleks pulls his pants to his knees.

 

“You can see his dick!” Joe calls from the river and Aleks looks down.

 

“Jesus fucking christ!” Brett shouts and charges towards Aleks again.

 

“Wait, wait, wait! Don’t.” He screams, pulling his pants back up. “I’m keeping my shirt off though.”

 

“Fine.” 

 

Aleks sets his shirt down and slowly walks into the river. When he walks in, there are rocks lining the ground as if you aren’t supposed to actually go in the river. He maneuvers around them and reaches to the same area of the river that Joe is. 

 

“Wow, lots of fun! You guys should get in too.” He calls out. The water only reached to about his upper chest, and he looks to Joe. He’s able to touch as well, the water reaching the base of his neck at most. “You good, Joe?” Aleks asks and Joe nods, smiling brightly.  _ What a pure soul. _ He looks back to James and Brett as Brett nears James.

 

“You are  _ not _ coming anywhere near me.” James backs up. “You can’t pick me up.”

 

“Is that a challenge?” Brett says, amusedly.

 

“No.”

 

“Come here, James, my best friend–”

 

“No! Fuck off! I woke up at seven for this shit. I do not deserve this.”

 

“Dirty little boys need to go into the river.” 

 

“What the fuck, Brett?!” Aleks was laughing now, and so was Joe. “This sounds cult-y.”

 

“Just get in the river.”

 

“I hate you, you know that?” James huffs and walks into the river, ending up next to Aleks. “Fuck.” He mumbles   
  
“Brett, you need to come in too now.” Aleks shouts to Brett, who looks very deep into thought, rubbing his chin.

 

“Here’s the thing,” Brett begins. “I could leave right now.”

 

“BRETT!” James screams, running back out of the water (well, more like trudging through water as fast as one can) and towards him. Joe and Aleks were now in a fit of laughter.

 

*******

 

Brett didn’t end up leaving them there, and they actually spent nearly two hours at the damn river, just fucking around. They began to see people on morning walks and that’s when they knew they should most likely leave, before someone kicks them out of this gross river. As they get out, Aleks realizes two things: 1. He’s not wearing a shirt still, and 2. James’ hair was down again.

 

He wasn’t aware when James had actually taken his hair out at the time it had happened, but now that they’re out of the ‘moment’, he sees it now. 

 

“Try and dry a little before getting in my car.” Brett had said about five minutes ago, so Aleks decided to take the time to try and find his shirt. They had moved some down the river from where they first got in, so he went to go get it, and for some reason, he had asked James to come with him. He thinks that he must have done it subconsciously, because he can barely remember the words coming from his mouth, but only afterwards. James was trying to dry out his hair (Aleks was trying not to stare too hard at how  _ curly  _ his hair was when it was wet) and then looked at him curiously.

 

“Why?” Aleks didn’t know what to say.

 

“Uh, well, like, I don’t wanna get attacked.” Aleks shrugged, attempting to stick his hands in his wet jeans but failing. James started to laugh. “Stop laughing. It’s not funny.”

 

“You could have just asked for me to come with you.” James said and began walking, and that’s where Aleks is now.

 

“I did ask, asshole.” Aleks states, his face growing red.

 

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to make up a shitty excuse.” He responds.

 

“What was I supposed to say, then?”

 

There’s a beat of silence. “I’m not sure.” 

 

“So I was set up failure as soon as I asked the question.” They reach the area where Aleks’ shirt still lays as he pulls it on. He smooths it out gently, looking back up to James, who was smiling wide.

 

“Yeah.” 

 

Aleks feels his heart doing that… that  _ thing _ again. It’s weaker this time, but it’s still there. He doesn’t know what to say, or if to say anything, so he just smiles nervously and Brett calls out for them, and Aleks can’t help but feel eternally grateful for Brett at that moment. They enter the parking lot with Brett’s car in it, and James speaks up.

 

“So, even though we had to wake up way too fucking early for a Sunday… was it worth it, Aleksandr?” They’re now right next to Brett’s car, and Aleks can see Brett sitting in the driver’s seat with Joe in the passenger’s. He takes a glance at James to say ‘no’, but it doesn’t come out.

 

“I guess it was.” This comes out instead and Aleks feels himself smile before getting back into the car.

 

Aleks thinks about what he had just said, and realizes he wasn’t lying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just wanted to say thank u all so so much for reading... i appreciate it more than you could ever imagine <3
> 
> have a wonderful day !! x


	5. 05 / THE SHINING IS ONE FUCKED UP MOVIE, IF YOU ASK ME

Aleks needs to get out of here.

 

Not permanently, but maybe he should hang out with someone other than his housemates.

 

There’s no reason to why he needs to get out, he should just go off and hang out with Suptic, or something. 

 

There’s  _ no reason _ at all.

 

...

 

_ Except _ that he almost kissed James.

 

_ Maybe. _

 

It was such a damn cliché, too.

 

It was Halloween. There was a party at Funhaus, but it was a school night, and Aleks just wasn’t up to it. Everybody else, aside from James, went to the party. James came into his room and asked if he wanted to watch the Shining with him, to which Aleks agreed. They went downstairs to watch it, and it was all good for the first hour or so.

 

The main guy had just walked into the bathroom and started making out with some naked woman before she turned all fucked up, and Aleks had been subconsciously moving closer to James. There’s not a lot of stuff that makes Aleks feel unsettled in horror movies, but for some reason, this made him feel just  _ real _ fucked up. Aleks moved so he was sitting next to James, but not touching him. He thought that James wouldn’t notice, but apparently he did, because he looked at him.

 

“Are you scared, Aleksandr?” James had asked. It hadn’t sounded like James was teasing him or anything, but of course, Aleks went into a defensive state anyways.

 

“No, fuck off.” Aleks said, glancing at James. He didn’t look like there was any sort of amusement on his face. “It’s just gross, is all.” 

 

“We don’t have to watch this, you know.” He said, and Aleks felt flustered, which he fucking hates. He didn’t even know  _ why _ he was flustered, there was nothing to be like this about. Maybe it was because James was expressing some sort of reassurance for Aleks, but that thought alone made him feel more flustered.  **_Fuck!_ **

 

“It’s fine.” Aleks mumbled, slouching a bit. 

 

“You sure?” 

 

“ _ Yes. _ ” Aleks said, almost exasperated.  _ Why does James care so much anyways? _ James didn’t respond after that, finally. Aleks sits up a little more. 

 

Not much happened for about five minutes before Aleks could feel James moving his right arm to rest against the back of the couch. On some sort of level, James’ arm was around  _ Aleks _ .  _ Was this some sort of prank, or something? _ More thoughts pushed their way to the front of Aleks’ brain. He had looked up towards James and felt more disinterest from an immersive movie than he ever has. James looked so calm for watching such a fucked up movie. 

 

He didn’t realize that he was staring at James until James had looked back at him. He also didn’t realize just how close the two of them were. This was it. This was where Aleks fucking  _ died.  _

 

James wasn’t looking away either as the creepy music that has been played over most of the movie so far played in the background. Aleks couldn’t move away, even if he wanted to, it was like he was frozen in place. He didn’t know if it was just his view beginning to distort but James was moving even closer–

 

_ Until the back door slid wide open.  _

 

Aleks gets hit with a reality truck as he flinches away from James, scrambling back across to the other side of the couch before he can actually see what, or who had made the door open like that. A moment passed before Aleks looked up to see a swaying Trevor. His clothes looked rather wrinkled and muddy in some way. He tried to adjust to the light that Trevor had turned on after entering the house.

 

“What–” Trevor started to say.

 

“What the fuck are you doing, Trevor?” James cut him off quickly. Aleks looked at James, his arm now resting at his side with his face slightly pink. Aleks took a deep breath.

 

“I, uh, walked home.” 

 

“I could have guessed that. Why did you leave the party?” James asked, a bit slower. Trevor played with the zipper of his jacket.

 

“I don’t know. I just left.”

 

“Don’t we have a fence in our backyard?” Aleks had asked, still attempting to catch up on what had just happened. “How did you get in through the backdoor?” 

 

“Oh, I climbed the fence.”

 

“We have a front door.” James said.

 

“I didn’t see it.” Trevor responded, shaking his head. He looked at the TV. “What are you guys watching?”

 

“The Shining.” James said. Aleks was still trying to recollect everything, yet James seemed so calm– what the fuck? Did that only happen in his mind, or something? 

 

Trevor walked over to the couch, sitting in the middle of them. It shouldn’t bother Aleks, but Trevor basically cockblocked him someway. He’s still not sure if he was grateful or not for Trevor to do so. He didn’t say anything and they all watched the movie. Trevor fell fast asleep, snoring loudly. 

 

Aleks just ignored it until somehow, the boychild ended up lying on both James and Aleks, his feet on Aleks’s lap and head on James’, still fast asleep. Yes, it was definitely pretty fucking weird– watching the Shining with technically, an adult sleeping on you after you almost kissed your crush– and there’s not really an ending to this sentence, because it definitely was pretty fucking weird, and that’s all there was to it.

 

They sit there for about fifteen minutes until Aleks glances at James, and James looks at Aleks, and they both start fucking laughing. They’re trying to hold it in because they didn’t want to wake Trevor just yet– he probably needed the sleep.

 

“Fuck.” Aleks gasps out, taking deep breaths. Why were they laughing? Was it just the absurdity of the situation?

 

After that, they finished the movie and woke Trevor up to lead him back upstairs, leaving him some water and pills for when he woke up. James bid Aleks a goodnight and Aleks did the same and they both went to their respective rooms, and that’s where Aleks is now.

 

It’s nearing one in the morning and Aleks can’t seem to fall asleep. 

 

Did all of that really happen? Is he just blowing this out of proportion? He’s just tired– right? That must be it. 

 

Aleks turns on his side for what seems like the 400th time, covering his head with his pillow.

 

He should hang out with Suptic.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like i update too much im sorry :(
> 
> i hope you enjoyed and thank you all so so much for reading and leaving comments it means so much to me :)
> 
> <3 have a good day! x


	6. 06 / FUCK!

Aleks didn’t know it was possible to wake up with a headache from thinking too much the night before, but when he wakes up with one, he learns that it most definitely is possible. 

 

He checks his phone to see that it’s already 8 o’clock. He would leave with Asher in about fifteen minutes, but he doesn’t feel eating. He’ll probably regret the idea later today, but right now, it seems like the best idea to avoid James. Why he’s avoiding James, he doesn’t know– maybe in fear of having to talk to him about what happened last night which may or may not have actually happened. Maybe he’s just… nervous. Aleks doesn’t fucking know. 

 

He remembers his plan to hang out with Suptic, and decides to text him.

 

_ hey Daddy _

 

Suptic responds right away.

 

> _ Busy little Russian college boy decides to text now, huh? _

 

_ Yeah _

 

_ What are you doing tomorrow? _

 

> _ I have classes until 3, but after that I’m free _

 

_ > Wanna go to the grocery store with me and Cib? He wants to get some Jell-O _

 

_ > We can pick you up at five _

 

_ Sure _

 

> _ See you then, little boy. _

  
  


*******

 

Avoiding James was easier than Aleks had thought, as James hadn’t tried to go out of his way to talk to him (from what Aleks had seen, at least), but the hardest part was something that Aleks had forgotten– he actually  _ enjoys _ being around James, which sucks. But, Aleks is still alive, so he’ll be fine. 

 

It’s five now, so Suptic and Cib should be picking him up any minute now. He’s sitting on the couch on his phone while he waits when Brett comes into Aleks’ line of sight.

 

“Hey there.” Brett greets him, walking to the fridge. He retrieves a water bottle before turning around to look at Aleks. “Are you going somewhere?”

 

“Yeah, Suptic and Cib are gonna pick me up.” Aleks responds, pulling at the sleeve of his sweatshirt as Brett moves to the living room, leaning against the frame of the entrance of the room.

 

“Cool.” Brett says, and Aleks thinks that’s the end of the conversation. “How’s James?”

 

“Why should I know? He’s downstairs, go ask him.” Aleks goes into his common defense route as Brett raises an eyebrow, taking another sip of his water.

 

“He’s at the gym, actually.”

 

“He goes to the gym?” Aleks can’t recall James ever telling him that he goes to the gym, but then again, _Aleks shouldn’t_ _care. But he does anyways._

 

“He used to a lot last year.” He says, before adding thoughtfully, “I haven’t seen him go at all this year, though.”

 

“He’ll probably be super sore, then. After not going for that long.” Aleks mumbles, a text message popping up from Suptic.

 

> _ Be there soon, icky boy _

 

Aleks texts back quickly.

 

_ Drive faster, cuck _

 

“You know,” Brett starts up again.  _ Brett is one of my best friends, _ Aleks reminds himself. “I haven’t seen you talk to James for the last day or two.”

 

“Are you trying to interview me?” Aleks asks, setting his phone down.

 

“No. Of course not. Just, you know,” Brett decides to stop himself by taking a nice,  _ long _ , drink of water. “I remember what you told me, a few weeks ago. You’re just… more on edge than usual. Ever since Halloween, I think. Which was, you know,  _ a day or two ago _ .” Brett says and Aleks feels his heart in his throat. “Anything happen while we were gone?” 

 

“That’s none of your business, first of all.” Aleks tries to calm down.

 

“Okay, I was just asking. You don’t need to be so defensive, you know. You could always do this thing called…” Brett pauses for some effect. “Expressing your emotions.”

 

“I like this bottle in my pocket, thank you.” Aleks says, taking deep breaths. _What the fuck is wrong with me?_ _Why can’t I calm down?_ Suptic better be here soon. At least Suptic won’t ask questions that will fuck with his mind like this.

 

“Whatever you say.” Brett keeps looking right at Aleks as he chugs the rest of his water, though there was more than half of the bottle left.

  
“Why did you do that?” Aleks asks as Brett wipes his mouth.

 

“Do what?” Brett goes and throws away the bottle. “Bye-bye.” Brett waves goodbye before going upstairs, and Aleks is super fucking confused. His phone vibrates to see that Suptic texted him ‘here’ and he exits out the front door to see Suptic’s car in the driveway. 

 

He climbs into the backseat, the sound of some random alternative artist that Suptic likes listening to vibrates its’ way into Aleks’ ears. Cib, who was seated in the passenger’s seat, turns to Aleks as Suptic pulls out of the driveway.

 

“Good afternoon, you gentle little man.” 

 

“Hello there, good sir.” Aleks responds, buckling his seatbelt, because he’s a good citizen.

 

“How are you doing on this day of Fri?” 

 

“That doesn’t even make sense.” Suptic comments. He is ignored.

 

“I’m doing wonderful today, thank you. How are you, sir Cib?”

  
“Haven’t seen you in like, two months, my man!” The bit that was going on is apparently dropped as Cib smiles.

 

“Yeah, dude. I think the last time I saw you was that first week.” Aleks says, talking to Cib, of course. He had an Algebra class with Suptic, so it wasn’t uncommon to see him. Cib had hopped onto an entirely different topic after that.

 

*******

 

It’s been four hours, but a good four hours. They’re at a park, currently. They aren’t doing anything specific, but it’s fun anyways. It’s getting dark, but Cib spots a playground and runs over to it. Aleks goes over to join him when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. And then it vibrates two more times.

 

He pulls it out and turns it on, the bright screen blaring in his face as he opens his messages to see three new messages from James.

 

> _ mr sandmasn _

 

> _ man me a sand! _

 

> _ make him the cutest man car door hook hand _

Aleks debates whether or not to reply. James doesn’t send texts often, but when he does, it’s usually not at this degree of weirdness. 

 

_ Why does that go perfectly with the song _

 

> _ because its a catchy good song _

 

_ Are you alright? _

 

> _ Yeah i m just in m room _

 

> _ Chillin _

 

_ > Hanging _

 

_ Did you do anything _

 

_ > I did my college Classes and then i went to the gym and then i drank _

 

_ > did YOU do anything _

 

_ Nope _

 

“Aleks!” Cib calls him and Aleks looks up to see him on top of a set of monkey bars. There’s no typing bubble so Aleks slides his phone back into his pocket and runs up to the bars, climbing on top. “You lost, chicken boy!” He yells to Suptic, who was walking and unaware that this was some sort of race, just like Aleks.

 

“We’re in public. Like, you know that right?” Suptic climbs up as well, on the other side of Cib. “And we’re adults. On a child’s playset.”

 

“I think the true fault is of the parents who would bring their kids to a park at 9 o’clock at night.” Aleks says.

 

“Exactly.” Cib agrees, and Aleks feels his phone vibrate. Suptic tries explaining the problem with that logic but he pulls out his phone.

 

_ > I wasnt gonn a ask but im fucked up so are you mad at me or something? cause it seemed like you were slash are _

 

Aleks thinks about how to answer.  _ Of course I’m not mad,  _ Aleks reasons with himself.

 

_ No _

 

_ Im not mad at you _

 

_ > okay Cool _

 

_ > Like i tried giving you space and stuff after you didnt try and talk to me yesterday like you usually do and iwas just worried I guess _

 

Aleks feels like smiling after reading that. That’s the first time James has openly expressed an emotion aside from rage.

 

“Who’re you talkin’ to?” Cib asks, leaning over. Aleks feels his face go red as he turns his phone off, turning away.  _ Fuck _ . “Aw,  _ Steve _ , he’s blushin’.” Cib pinches at his face and Aleks slaps his hand away gently.

 

“Fuck off, man.” Aleks turns further away, putting his phone back in his pocket. “I wasn’t talking to anyone.” He’d hoped by saying that, that would disinterest Cib, but it seemed to only fuel him further, taking Suptic with him.

 

“I think the little Russian boy has a crush.” Suptic gushes.

 

“Shut the fuck up, you look like Tom Arnold.” Aleks snaps and Suptic gasps.

 

“I do not.”

 

“Kinda do, my man.” Cib says, shrugging.

 

“I do not look anything like him!” Suptic shouts and gets his phone to pull up a picture just to prove a point. 

 

“I see it.” Cib squints a bit, looking at the phone and then back to Suptic.

 

“No you don’t! Stop! My self esteem is crumbling.” Suptic rubs his face and Aleks laughs.

  
“What self esteem?” Aleks asks.

 

He’s just glad the conversation was diverted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyheyhey how are you guys doing? good i hope!! i started school but that wont stop me from updating because you guys are wonderful!!!!
> 
> have an amazing day and i hope you enjoyed!! <3


	7. 07 / A MISANTHROPIC DRUNKEN LOSER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theres some mentioned alcoholism in this :((
> 
> its only like, a sentence though so hopefully its fine. enjoy!! xx

Suptic had just dropped Aleks off, and he walks inside. He considers going upstairs to his room to sleep since it was already nearing ten, but he decides to see how James is instead. He turns the corner to see Trevor and Asher watching something on the TV, but they don’t pay him any mind and vice versa as he walks downstairs. 

 

He sees James, sitting on the ground and leaning against the bedframe at the end of the bed. He looks occupied with something, like he was cutting up some paper, or something. He looks– from what Aleks can see– fine. His hair was up, but it looks like it was put up very sloppy. He had on a baggy t-shirt and what looked like as sweatpants– which Aleks can’t recall James  _ ever  _ wearing. He was playing music from his phone, with beer cans stacked on top of each other to his side, along with a half empty bottle of whiskey.  _ Holy shit, how is he still alive, _ Aleks wonders to himself as he walks down the steps.

 

“James?” Aleks says when he reaches the bottom of the stairs and James looks up at him, smiling.   
  
“Hello.” James greets him, picking his phone up to turn down the volume.

  
“I know you hate small talk, but,” Aleks rubs the back of his neck as James pats the space next to him as an invitation for Aleks to sit. “How are you?”

 

“I’m good.” He says calmly, though his words were slurring together ever so noticeably. Aleks sits down next to him and James looks at him. “I’m not eight, you know.”

  
“This is the first time I’ve seen you drunk,” Aleks observes honestly, as James looks back down to the paper he was cutting, continuing his work. “And I’ve known you for a little over two months now. And we’re in college. It usually doesn’t take that long to see a college kid drunk.” 

 

“I’m not a big fan of drinking.” James says. “Both of my parents were alcoholics.” Aleks suddenly feels bad. Aleks can only imagine what it’s like to go through something like that. He doesn’t know what to say. 

 

“James, I’m so s–”

 

“It’s fine.” James stops him before he can finish. “It doesn’t matter now.” He sets aside the most recent scraps of the paper he was cutting before going right back to it. “My mom is sober now, she has been for five years. My dad left my mom and me when I was in seventh grade, and I haven’t talked to him since. I don’t know where he is, and he’s out of my life now.” Aleks  _ really  _ doesn’t know what to say about that. Aleks had thought that he knew James quite well– his interests and what he fucking hates, what he’s like when he’s happy or upset, stuff like that and more– but now Aleks is thinking about how little he knows of pre-college James. He hasn’t told James much about pre-college Aleks either, but there wasn’t much about him that Aleks deemed interesting enough to include in conversations, besides being from Russia, which still isn’t that interesting. Aleks remembers when he had mentioned that he was from Russia to James, he didn’t believe him until Aleks started speaking Russian. James must have not been expecting that, to say the least, and had sat back against the couch out of surprise.

 

“What are you cutting up?” Aleks decides to change the conversation since he doesn’t know what else to say.

 

“My immigration documents.”

 

“Actually?” James turns back to him again, giggling. Aleks’ heart does _the_ _thing_ because this man is such a precious fucking dork, but you didn’t hear it from Aleks. 

 

“I’m joking, you fucking nerd.” James leans further against the bedpost, grabbing a handful of scrapped up pieces of paper. “It’s just like, writing stuff I did in my first year here. Anna and Joe were my only friends then, and so I was left to a lot of thinking then, so I wrote a lot of it down, and so now I’m cutting it up.” He continues to explain, setting the scraps back down. He remembers James mentioning Anna previously– she’s a friend of James back in high school, and they’re still friends now, just like Joe. “Not a big fan of the past.” He explains.

 

“But the past is what makes you the person you are now.” Aleks says.

 

“Don’t put that on me.” James smiles as he picks up the scissors again. He didn’t understand what that was supposed to mean– that James doesn’t like who he is now? 

 

“Can I ask you a question?” 

 

“Now is the best time to ask.”   
  
“If you don’t like drinking, then why now?” Aleks asks, and James doesn’t respond for a bit.

 

“I don’t know.” He admits, shrugging. “I came home and I thought, hey, why not just get super fucked up, and so I did that.”

 

“Yeah, you did that.” Aleks thinks about how most likely dangerous it is to be having a drunk person handle scissors, but he’s watching him, so he’ll most likely be safe. 

 

After a while longer of sitting in a comfortable silence, he checks his own phone to check the time to realize he’s been down here longer than he thought. It’s 10:30 at the moment, and he had come home around 9:40. Aleks figures it’ll be good for James to get to sleep.

 

“You should get to sleep soon.” Aleks comments after they sit in silence, watching James as he cuts up some more paper. “I can clean up all of this and get some water for you. Seems like you’ll probably be having a real fun hangover tomorrow, huh?”

 

“I guess so.” James shrugs, setting down the scissors. “I can clean this up. I won’t refuse the water, though.” Aleks nods and begins to head upstairs. He had forgotten about Trevor and Asher watching the TV as he walks back upstairs, but he sees them both fast asleep, the two boys stretched across the couch with their mouths open like children. He tiptoes over to the living room and finds the remote, turning the TV off.

 

Next, he turns on the kitchen light and begins to retrieve water, a fuckton of pills, and a Gatorade (because Gatorade fixes everything to Aleks) before turning the lights back off and moving quietly down the steps. He comes downstairs and James is still in the midst of cleaning up the paper, the cans already gone. He sets the items down on James’ nightstand before coming back to the middle of the room to help him.

 

Once they’re done, James climbs into his bed clumsily. Before he actually lays down, he pulls the hair tie out of his hair, sliding the tie onto his wrist. Aleks tries his best to disregard his extreme gayness and continues to try and help his drunk friend. He hands James the Gatorade after he opens it, and James drinks half of it in one sip. He also gives James some Advil in preparation for the murderous hangover he’ll have in the morning.

  
James finally lays down, turning on his side.

 

“Goodnight, James.” Aleks says, and James yawns.

 

“Goodnight, Aleksandr.”

 

James is fast asleep after that, and Aleks turns off the lights before going up to his own room.

 

As Aleks slips into deep sleep, he realizes that he can barely remember why he was avoiding James in the first place. He bets whatever it was, was a pretty dumb fucking reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello !! school has been getting somewhat better thankfully :)
> 
> also i've written ahead a little and my estimation to how long this story will be is probably like... 14 chapters maybe?? :o thats just a guess tho it could be higher or lower but im committed to finishing this !! ive had many different ideas for fics but i pushed them aside because i know if i start another one i'll get distracted so i am! committed!!!!
> 
> anyways sorry for rambling, have a wonderful day and thank you for reading!! it means so much to me :^)
> 
> <333


	8. 08 / SNOW & STRAWBERRIES

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is pretty messy and it was mostly a montage of the next to months in Aleks' Fun Gay Journey im sorry :(( i hope you enjoy anyways!!

It’s the week before Thanksgiving break and it snowed all night and the night before that, and it’s still snowing right now, and Aleks is even more excited for Monday, because  _ now _ he gets to trudge through the snow at assfuck o’clock in the morning. Brett called for Aleks to come downstairs into the backyard and Aleks can’t help but fear for his life. He puts on a sweatshirt and goes downstairs. He tries to look through the glass door before going outside. He can see Brett, James and Joe throwing snowballs at Trevor and Asher, who are trying their best to retaliate, but failing. He walks outside and James looks at him and he sees his face brighten up.

  
“Aleksandr!” James calls out. “Pick a side.” Aleks grins, walking to Trevor and Asher. James put a hand against his heart. “You’ve betrayed me.”

 

“It would have been four against two, James. These boys need my help.” Aleks bends down and begins to construct a snowball before tossing it at James, feigning extreme offense. 

 

“Go Aleks!” Trevor says in a somewhat noncommittal tone.

 

“You fucks aren’t even trying, are you?” Aleks asks as Asher gets hit in the face, a small ‘sorry!’ from Joe following right after.

 

“I’m trying.” Asher responds. “Except I just got severely injured, so it might just have to be you and Trevor.”

 

“You suck, Asher.” Aleks brushes off Asher’s ‘severe injury’. “Do either of you know how to even make a snowball?” Aleks asks and they both nod, knowing that they’re not getting out of this now. Normally, Aleks would probably feel similarly to the two, but he wouldn’t let James beat him now. 

 

In result, James, Joe and Brett gave up first, due to the possible hypothermia building up in their fingertips and hands from touching all the snow. Aleks was quietly thankful, since he was getting pretty fucking cold. He walks inside and washes his hands with warm water in the bathroom.

 

“So we beat you guys, right?” A voice appears from behind him and he turns around to see James, his cheeks still rosy from the cold air.

  
“No, I think we beat you, since you guys gave up.” Aleks turns off the sink, smirking.

 

“You can die from hypothermia, you know.” 

 

“Yeah, but you  _ still  _ gave up. So.” He shrugs.

 

“Whatever you say, Aleksandr.” James smiles, reaching his hand out towards Aleks. Aleks looks down at the hand and then glances back up towards James. “After games and stuff you know, you’re supposed to shake the opponent’s hand.”

 

Aleks blinks very slowly, before shaking his hand. Thankfully, his hand was still wet from just washing it to mask the constant sweatiness of his hands.

 

James smiles a little before walking back out.

 

_ What the fuck? _

 

*******

 

Aleks and James are watching Dexter. Well, no, Aleks wouldn’t say that he is– it’s moreso playing in the background while Aleks isn’t paying attention. It’s pretty bright, but it usually isn’t when they’re watching Dexter because James turns the lights off for some reason. The lights are on now, though. 

 

Aleks turns to look at James. He’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt that Aleks thinks looks good on him– well, anything looks good on him– and he has this big, bright smile on his face. Aleks smiles nervously back, and he tries to say something, but James begins to talk.

 

“ _ Aleksandr. _ ” He says, and leans over to Aleks and begins kissing him. 

 

Aleks kisses him back, slowly, as James slides his hand to cup Aleks’ face gently. He begins to lick into Aleks’ mouth, small gasps leaving Aleks mouth as he does so. His hands slide down to Aleks’ thighs and he’s suddenly on James’ lap and James’ mouth is on his neck, pressing warm kisses down his neck. He has let girls kiss his neck before, but this feels different. Much different.

 

“ _ Aleksandr. _ ” Just James saying that word in his ear sends shivers wracking his spine as James runs his hands underneath his shirt and up his torso and anywhere he can touch. It sounds much dirtier now than it did a minute ago. 

 

Aleks whimpers, feeling incredibly sensitive as he tries to kiss James again.  _ Tastes like strawberries, _ the thought runs through his mind and it almost kills him, kissing him harder. He feels one of James’ hands slip out of his shirt and press down onto his crotch, causing him to moan rather loudly. He hears James say something else but he can’t make out the words, and everything is starting to distort in a fast blur until Aleks is back in his bed, sweating and flushed.

 

He sits up, immediately wincing at the very gross feeling in his boxers.  _ That was a fucking dream? _ Aleks thinks to himself, standing up to get new clothes. He checks the time to see it was five in the morning, meaning he had about three hours. He decides to take a well needed shower _. _

 

After he showers, he puts his clothes in the washer. As the clothes inside turn around and around, Aleks gives himself a chance to breathe. 

 

_ What the fuck kind of dream was that? _

 

*******

 

The rest of November and the whole of December feels a lot like some sort of fucked up trance.

 

Well, not a trance, but more that Aleks has just been busy with school and focusing on school that he hasn’t spent much time thinking. He does think sometimes. Not much happened. Aleks gained a new obsession with candles the day before he left for Thanksgiving break.

 

It happened because Aleks, Brett, and Brett’s friend, Lindsey, had to go get some batteries for Trevor for some reason, and they passed some sort of candle aisle and Lindsey stopped them to look at them. Brett didn’t listen and went off to get batteries, but Aleks stayed with Lindsey as she talked about candles. He ended up buying three different candles right then and there, much to Brett’s dismay. He left them at the house before going to visit his family. 

 

As much as he’d like to deny it, he thought about James when he had the time.

 

Thanksgiving was fine. His father didn’t spend a lot of time with his extended family and Aleks has only met them a handful of times. Instead, Aleks spent his break sleeping and talking with his dad and his dad’s new girlfriend, Eileen. She was kind and funny, so he liked her. Their Thanksgiving was spent watching cheesy Thanksgiving movies and eating Chinese food, and Aleks wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

 

December meant that the semester would soon be over, and that meant a bunch of fun exams. People cope with finals and tests in many different ways. But Aleks chooses to just study and block everything else out. He’s studied a bit with Asher since they have similar classes, but other than that, the house had been almost  _ silent _ .

 

Besides screams of frustration and pain, of course.

 

Winter break finally comes, and everybody in the house is just asleep now. Aleks thinks that the only people who are actually leaving for winter break are Trevor and Joe. They all had decided not to buy anything for each other, except James had bought everyone something anyways. Most of it was complete shit, though, as he bought everything off of Amazon start-up projects. Aleks now has some creepy ass talking rubber duck sitting in his room. James did come back later that night, giving him a candle as he had heard of Aleks’ newfound obsession through Brett. Aleks thought it was nice of him, until he saw what kind of candle it was.

 

_ A fucking strawberry candle. _

 

He almost dropped it on the floor when he saw it.

 

It seems like Aleks’ dreams and reality were teaming up to make fun of him. 

  
That’s another thing– he had two other dreams about James. The next one he had after the first one was explicitly sexual but it was much more distorted than the first, but Aleks woke up shaking and sweating and flushed and just even more _ gross  _ than the previous one. The most recent one he had was actually last night.

 

It wasn’t sexual at all, and Aleks still thought it was strange (yeah, no shit, Aleks. You’re having super gay dreams about one of your closest friends that you also have an unadmittedly large crush on). At least, this time, he didn’t wake up with jizz in his boxers.

 

He can remember almost nothing about it, besides how bright it was, and James’ laugh continued to ring throughout his mind in a soft echo. He woke up and forgot it immediately, like how most dreams are.

 

Currently, Aleks is sitting on the ground with the strawberry candle next to him. He watches the candle wax begin to melt from the heat as he slowly begins to slip into the depths of hell known as his thoughts. He begins to blank out from this plane of existence when Asher enters his room without knocking.

 

“I could have been jacking off, you know.” Aleks sits up straight. 

 

“Don’t you do that in the shower?” Asher asks, shutting the door behind him. Aleks puts the lid over the candle, killing the flame instantly. “I have an important question to ask you.” He says rather seriously and Aleks suddenly feels much more uncomfortable.

 

“Okay, what is it?”

 

“Do you think that you can set snow on fire?” 

 

“No, I don’t, but can I try anyways?” The pyromaniac inside of Aleks asks, standing up when Asher nods.

 

As it turns out: no, you cannot set snow on fire, but you can burn the dead grass underneath it and almost start your backyard on fire instead.

 

Brett wasn’t too happy to find out those results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also i have no idea how to tag people on ao3 but heres a recommendation,, u should read krewella's college au called if it were the real me and you (this wouldn't be the right thing to do) its rlly good and shes like super nice&sweet ok :^)))
> 
> thank u so so much for reading and have a wonderful day and week!! <3 x


	9. 09 / NEW YEAR BUT THE SAME SHIT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is late im sorry oops.... enjoy anyways!! x

New year, new Aleks.

 

No, it’s the same Aleks, sitting on the front porch of some random person’s house, drunk off his ass. He has  _ no  _ idea where he is. He went to a party with Brett and got so completely fucked up he can barely see straight. He somehow ended up outside of the house and now he’s sitting down. Aleks believes that it’s a guarantee that he won’t remember what the fuck happened. He doesn’t even know what’s going on right now, and he’s here.

 

The sky looks nice, and that’s the only thing he can look at since it’s so dark. Aleks kind of wants to go home, except he doesn’t know how. Maybe he’ll die here. What a way to go out. He lays down and reaches for his phone that was thankfully still in his pocket. It’s 3 in the morning. In Aleks’ intoxicated state, he thinks it’s a good idea to call the first person to comes to mind. 

 

_ James. _

 

The phone makes the familiar ringing noise twice before it stops.

 

“Aleksandr?” James’ voice comes through the phone and Aleks feels himself smiling.

  
“Hi.” Aleks says. There’s some rustling on James’ side of the call before he responds.

  
“Do you need something?” 

 

“You.” Aleks mumbles into the phone. He hears James sigh.

 

“Are you drunk right now?”

 

“Mhm.” He hums, sitting back up. “Wanna pick me up?”   
  


“Do you know where you are?”

 

“I can send you my location.”

 

“Do that.”

 

“Okay.” Aleks says, but James already hung up. He sends James his location and puts his phone back into his pocket.

  
Aleks isn’t keeping track of time, but James gets there in what Aleks believes is a short amount of time in Brett’s car. Aleks remembers Brett leaving his car at the house and they got Kovic to drive them. 

 

Aleks stands up, taking a second to adjust himself to being alive and walks to the car door, opening it. James was in the process of adjusting his black jacket when Aleks settles into the seat.

 

“Privyet.” Aleks greets him, shutting the door and buckling his seat boy like the good boy he is. James looks him over.

 

“Jesus, you’re really fucked up, aren’t you?” 

 

“Mm,” He responds, leaning his head against the window. “I’m hungry.” 

 

“Okay. For what?” Aleks looks towards James. Through the dimness of the street lights, he can faintly see James.  _ He’s so handsome, _ Aleks thinks, continuing to blatantly stare at him.

 

“Denny’s.” Aleks mumbles and James begins to drive. Aleks shifts in his seat. “Sorry if I bothered you, or something.”

 

“You wouldn’t bother me.” 

 

“But you were probably sleeping–”

 

“Nah, I wasn’t.”

 

“Why?” Aleks asks, not aware of boundaries at the moment. He’s still staring intently at James, who only smiles at the question before answering.

  
“Celebrating New Year’s, I guess.” 

 

“I’m drunk, and I know that’s a lie.”

 

“You’re right. You won’t probably remember any of this, anyways.” James shrugs. “I just don’t sleep too well sometimes. Never killed anybody. I think.”

 

“What if I do remember this?”

 

“I’ll just have to kill you.” Aleks doesn’t reply, just making a small noise in the back of his throat and deciding that’s his response.

 

Soon enough, they pull into the parking lot, and he thinks,  _ wow, that was quick, _ though his meaning of time is much more fucked up than usual. 

 

“Do you need help getting out?” James asks him as they unbuckle their seatbelts, and Aleks shakes his head, practically stumbling out of the car. He catches up to James and, disregarding his space, grabs at James’ hand. James doesn’t move his hand, but instead a question comes out of his mouth. “What are you doing?”

 

“I might get lost.” Aleks giggles, intertwining their fingers together. He hears James exhale at his side, but he doesn’t move away.

 

“How are your hands so sweaty constantly?” James asks but Aleks knows by his tone that he doesn’t mean much by it. 

 

“I’m so nervous around you.” Aleks giggles and they walk inside the Denny’s, hand in hand, at 3:30 in the morning. Usually, Aleks would be wondering how the fuck he got here, but currently, he’s not worried about a damn thing. 

 

A waitress comes up to them, leading them to a booth and setting the menus down on the table before walking away. James lets go of Aleks’ hand to sit on one side of the booth, obviously expecting Aleks to sit on the other side, but Aleks sits right next to him.

 

“Aleks.” James says in a warning tone, but Aleks only giggles, as he knows that James won’t do anything, and James has a small smile on his face as well. He reaches down and grabs at James’ hand again. James uses his other hand to open the menu. 

 

Aleks is staring at James again, his unoccupied hand holding up his head. Compared to normal James, he looks so unbothered. The only other time he’s seen James like this was when James had gotten drunk.

 

“Y’know that one time when you got drunk,” Aleks starts and James looks up from the menu to look at Aleks. “Do you remember our conversation? Or are we just, like, not gonna talk about it?”   
  
“What is there to talk about, really?” 

 

“I don’t know. Like, it doesn’t have to be what we talked about. You just haven’t told me a lot of stuff about you before college.” 

 

“None of it matters. That was the past–” James says but is quickly cut off by Aleks.

 

“And the present is now, or whatever. Yeah, I get that, but isn’t there something, like… valuable about learning new things about one of your friends?” 

 

“I broke my arm once. Is that valuable to you?” Aleks groans at James’ response. “What did I do, now?”

 

“Why do you not talking about anything?” Aleks whines, pressing his face to the table out of frustration but quickly sitting up again after realizing that he doesn’t know what has been on this table. “You don’t like small talk and you don’t like talking about anything else. What am I supposed to talk to you about? Wanna talk about your shitty platformer games?”

 

“First of all, the Mario games are  _ not _ shitty platformer games. And secondly, it’s not that I don’t like talking about ‘anything else’, I just don’t know what you want from me.”

 

“I want  _ so much  _ from you.” Aleks says– yeah, actually. He can see James’ cheeks turn the lightest shade of pink (red? Pink? What color? Who the fuck cares). 

 

“Stop.” James mutters and the waitress comes back to their table. She asks them what they’d like to drink and James gets water for the both of them and she walks away again.

 

“What’s your biggest fear?” Aleks asks, turning towards him.

 

“Cows.”

 

“I’m serious.”

 

“Maybe I am, too.”

 

“I’m drunk, you know. You shouldn’t be making fun of me like this.”

 

“And you’re underage, so stop saying you’re drunk.” James replies in a quiet voice, taking interest in the menu again. “Also, I’m not making fun of you.”   
  
“Then tell me what you’re scared of.”

 

“Heights.”

 

“Actually?”   
  
“Yeah.”

  
“You know, I don’t get it when people say that. Aren’t you just scared of falling, not the heights part of it?” James looks towards him again. 

 

“I’m not scared of falling.” James says, and though Aleks wasn’t bothered before with James’ eyes on him, he suddenly feels much more  _ bothered _ in some way that Aleks can’t explain at this moment. 

 

The waitress reappears, setting the two waters down and asking what they want. James orders for both of them but Aleks wasn’t paying attention to what he had ordered. She nods and walks away again, taking their menus with her. As she leaves, Aleks realizes that they’re still holding hands– though it’s comforting in some way, so he doesn’t move his hand away.

 

“What about you?” James asks, drinking his water. Aleks does the same because he realizes just how thirsty he is (in any sense of the word). “What are you scared of?” He clarifies.

  
“Uh,” Aleks thinks for a second. “Death, probably? And being alone.”

  
“In what way do you mean alone?”   
  
“Like… mentally. That I’ll wake up one day and everything I care about is just gone.” Aleks shrugs afterwards, moving closer to James.

 

“Well, is this the type of conversation you wanted to have?” James says, grinning, and Aleks can’t help but laugh, gently hitting his arm. “I’m just saying. This is a good talk to have at Denny’s at almost four in the morning.”

 

Details are spared, as it was rather uneventful– they got their food, Aleks continued to be a drunk (and maybe slightly handsy) little shit, asking way too many questions but James answered most of them and was patient with him and then they left. Aleks had grabbed onto James’ hand when they had left again, but quickly departed since they had to get on either side of the car.

 

“You should hold my hand more often.” Aleks states, leaning his head against the window as James drives out of the parking lot.

 

“Sure, Aleks.” 

 

Aleks suddenly found himself rather tired, falling asleep quickly, the only sound to accompany him being the sound of the car’s engine. Or is it the wheels? Whatever sound a car makes, is what Aleks hears as he falls asleep.

 

*******

 

Aleks wakes up the next morning with absolutely no memory of what happened the previous night. He can remember going to some party in the celebration of the new year with Brett, and then getting completely wasted.  _ I must’ve blacked out,  _ Aleks thinks to himself before taking in his surroundings. 

 

He is 100% sure that this is not his bed. 

 

It’s too cold to be his room, and the covers on the bed he’s in are a plain black, a vague contrast from his own plaid-patterned covers. He sits up quickly and realizes exactly where he is and begins to have essentially a panic attack.  _ James’ room. _

 

He also realizes that he’s not wearing a shirt. He looks to his left to see James sleeping, looking so damn peaceful and unbothered but  _ that’s not the point right now– Why is he in James’ room? _ Aleks tries his best to sort his thoughts in his mind through the raging hangover hitting him like a bus as he rolls- literally rolls- out of the bed, falling face first onto the floor with a loud  _ thump _ . 

 

“Aleks?” 

 

_ Fuck _ , Aleks thinks to himself and sits up enough that he’s looking over the top of the bed to see a now-sitting, hair-down James.

 

“Uh… Yeah?” Aleks says and he winces at the raspiness of his voice.  _ Fuck, _ his head hurts from just talking.

 

“The fuck are you doing?”

 

“Was tryin’ not to wake you.” Aleks mumbles, standing back up to sit down on the bed. “So… Why am I in here?”

 

“Oh, right, you blacked out.” James says, as if he had forgotten. “Well, I picked you up from some party and helped you into bed, but I think you threw up in your bed and came down here.”

 

“Oh.” Aleks is just thankful he’s not in James’ bed for a different reason, though his bed  _ is  _ quite comfortable. Especially now, since his own bed was probably covered in vomit. “Thanks.” He says quietly. James just nods in response as he stands up

 

“No problem. I recommend you get some Advil and some water, or whatever, ‘cause you’re gonna have to clean your sheets.” James grins a little before walking into his bathroom. Aleks sighs, because James is right.

 

Aleks walks upstairs with an almost blinding headache. As he opens a water and swallows some migraine relief pills, he realizes that it’s a whole different year now.

 

_ Damn. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok but how does this story have 730+ hits and 80+ kudos?? this story deserves like. nothing but thank you all so so much for reading anyways. <333
> 
> have a wonderful week!!


	10. 10 / DAD BOYS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enjoy :^)

Trevor broke his arm in the middle of January.

 

The way that it happened was so damn stupid, too. James and Aleks were in the living room watching Dexter, when they began to get into an argument whether or not Oprah Winfrey would be a good serial killer. The way that this topic was brought up– Aleks can’t tell you. 

 

James wanted to prove his point that Oprah wouldn’t be a good killer, as there are paparazzi and shit following her around so she wouldn’t be able to get shit done, so he called Trevor to ‘get his ass down there’.

  
Trevor’s footsteps could be heard until there was an especially loud  **thump** and then a groan and the two boys on the couch stood up and walked over to the base of stairs to see a dead Trevor.

 

Well, not dead. His left arm looked pretty fucked up though, because he fell down the stairs and landed on his arm with all of his weight. So, doing the right thing, James and Aleks took Brett’s car and drove him to the hospital.

 

Trevor’s left arm ended up in a sling and while they drove back home, James stopped at a nearby grocery store and bought Trevor ice cream without saying a thing, just tossing a quart of chocolate ice cream in the seat directly next to Trevor and drove them home.

 

Over the course of the next two weeks or so, Aleks (along with the other members of the house) had begun to notice the little things that James did to help the crippled Trevor. James reminded Trevor to adjust his temporary sling before Trevor went off to his classes, and had even yelled at a very high Asher when Asher had begun to roughhouse Trevor. Aleks didn’t notice it at the time, but he was doing similar things to James. 

 

James and Aleks both offered to drive Trevor to get his cast on, causing another argument to break out. They came to a quick agreement as Joe began to offer to drive him instead, which would have probably been fine, except Joe doesn’t know how to drive. Aleks sat in the passenger’s seat as James drove with Trevor in the back, similar to when they first drove him to the hospital.

 

Trevor got a blue cast which was what Aleks told him to get, and Aleks felt proud that Trevor listened to him. James stopped by a store on the way home again, for one to buy ice cream and also to buy a Sharpie so the two boys could write their names on Trevor’s new cast. James wrote his name normally with a dick at the end of it, while Aleks wrote ‘Cumlord’. Trevor didn’t seem too happy with their decisions, but he didn’t blacken it out so it couldn’t be seen so he must have appreciated it in some way.

 

After he got the cast on, they would take turns helping Trevor with his homework (if he needed help writing something down or typing, though he still had his right hand). They didn’t ever mention it, aside from sliding into Trevor’s room to ask him if he needed help. He mostly said ‘no thank you’ and they’d go downstairs to watch Dexter with one another.

 

It’s mid April now, and looking back at the last two and a half months, Aleks could barely begin with how this had become the regular ‘thing’ for him. It’s not anything that he dislikes though. It’s left him to think about certain things, coming to terms with certain things, etc. Certain things, such as: 

 

  1. He has a huge crush on James.



 

In case that wasn’t obvious already.

 

That’s not the new part that he’s come to terms to. At first, he just figured that he had a  _ little crush _ on James, and it would go away in two or three months tops, but no. It’s been like this since fucking October and his stomach still does flips when James touches him, or his heart beats a little faster when James looks  _ extra _ nice that day, or his sides hurt from laughing so hard when he’s hanging out with James, the way that he just  _ feels happier in general  _ whenever he’s around the fucker. 

 

Now,  _ in love with James? _ Aleks has only just come to terms with number one. He’s not thinking about something like that yet.

 

  1. The way that the 1938 version of Wizard of Oz was really fucked up.



 

This isn’t relevant, but Joe made them watch some random documentary about the ‘behind the scenes’ of the Wizard of Oz he found. It was real fucked up. 

 

  1. He would really like it if James kissed him.



 

_ As well as other things. _

 

His mind likes to bring up the time he almost kissed James that one time during the Shining, and Aleks used to be embarrassed by said thought, but now he can’t help but feel like he totally missed out there. 

 

Even when he’s sleeping, the occasional dream of kissing or doing shit with James comes into his brain and usually leaves him feeling very flustered or  _ icky _ .

 

  1. He has no fucking clue whether or not James is in some way, not straight.



 

This sounds lame, but it’s true.

 

He had asked a drunkened Brett, as he wouldn’t have the courage to ask a sober Brett, but he seemed to not be able to recall any relationships that James has had or mentioned. Aleks had also indirectly hinted at the topic once while James was showing him some stupid fucking youtube video, but James had just brushed it off which made Aleks scream into the oblivion.

 

  1. Also, if James was hypothetically not heterosexual, there is not a reason why James would have a liking towards _Aleks_ , of all people.



 

Back in his ‘hermiting’ days, Aleks dealt with heaps of fun things such as crippling self hatred and body image issues– but he’s not a damn hermit anymore and he should be happy with who he is now. And don’t get him wrong, he is happy with who he is, for the most part. 

 

But in this hypothetical situation, James would probably not settle for the drunk 25% of the time college boy with sweaty hands and an everlasting love for stale memes, and the inability to talk directly about his feelings while sober.

 

Aleks wouldn’t admit this part, but he does enjoy the dreams he has of some different universe where not-straight James would settle for the still-not-straight Aleks and they would live together, and James would come home from wherever he works and give Aleks all the attention and affection he probably doesn’t deserve, but gets anyways, and Aleks would return all of it back to James. Aleks could imagine them having one or two dogs, even. James has mentioned wanting a dog multiple times before. He likes these dreams he has, but he’d never say that to a living, breathing thing as long as he’s alive. He’s so dedicated to not admitting this, he’s sure not even Drunk Aleks would admit it to anyone either.

 

But really, in all honesty, he knows it sounds pretty damn nice.

 

But he’s in this universe, where James is most likely straight and uninterested in Aleks in the same way that Aleks is disinterested in James’ love for shittily made (well, not shittily made in James’ opinion) platformer games. And in this universe, it’s a Thursday morning and he has to wake up at cuckold o’clock (as Suptic enjoys calling it) and go to college classes and learn about shit that may or may not actually stay in his brain for the long run.

 

Aleks’ morning routine isn’t all too interesting– he showers quickly, he puts on some clothes, brushes his hair and teeth, etc. He walks down the stairs with his bag, and unlike normal, he’s not the last one to be in the kitchen/living room. Asher, Joe, and Trevor (in that order) are all squeezed in the couch, Joe being the only one genuinely invested in what’s on the TV. Brett is making food, and normally James would be standing around in the kitchen and offering help to Brett when needed, but James isn’t standing there when he walks in.

 

Aleks sets his bag down on the kitchen counter before going to the fridge and getting a Pepsi.

 

“A Pepsi? At eight in the morning?” Brett says in a critical tone, glancing back at Aleks as he opens said Pepsi.

 

“Whatever.” Aleks ignores him as he faces towards the living room, in which Asher was using Joe’s limp arm to bat at Trevor’s crippled one. “Yo, Asher, stop. He’s injured.” Aleks says in a seemingly cool tone before Asher groans.

 

“He’s not a baby, dude.” Asher lets go of Joe’s arm. “I swear, you and James are like his parents, or something.” Aleks doesn’t know why, but he feels himself tense at that.

 

“My mom and dad.” Trevor says, but Aleks’ vision is beginning to brighten and fade all at the same time. His face feels much warmer than usual.  _ What the fuck?  _ Aleks shouts at himself in his mind.  _ Why am I getting so worked up about this? _ Aleks can’t describe the levels of embarrassment running through him right now, or why these levels are so high and pumping through his blood.

 

“Why not two dads, Trevor?” Brett asks from the kitchen and Aleks is ready to knock him over the head with his Pepsi bottle.

  
“They do argue like a married couple.” Joe–  _ fucking Joe _ – says and Asher nods. Aleks is ready to kill when James walks out from the basement door and Trevor turns to him and waves.

  
“Hi, dad.”

 

_ That’s it.  _ Aleks grabs his bag and exits out the front door, slamming it shut as loud as he can in those five seconds of absolute fucking idiocy. He can’t go back in there after that stupid shit he just pulled. Brett would ask him why the  _ fuck _ he just did that, and not even Aleks himself would be able to explain why. He’s learned that he can’t explain lots of things that happen nowadays. 

 

He sighs, adjusting the strap of his bag against his shoulders before starting his walk.  _ Looks like I’m gonna be early to class today. _

 

*******

 

On his way home, Aleks thinks about what the  _ fuck  _ happened with him this morning.

 

He thinks that he was just embarrassed at the thought of Trevor calling him and James his parents, which was a joke, obviously, but Aleks’ gay little heart and mind couldn’t take it.

 

When he gets back after classes, the only people that will be home yet would be Joe and Asher. Aleks guesses that Joe wouldn’t ask any questions, and he hopes that Asher would be the same. He doesn’t know what he would say, especially if James comes up to him and asks him why Trevor called him dad and then he stormed out. 

 

_ “I have a big gay crush on you and the thought of our friends making the joke that we’re married and Trevor is our son makes me want to set myself on fire and I really don’t know why.”  _

 

He just can’t say that shit. 

 

*******

 

Details are spared from class, as nothing happened.

 

Aleks came home and he walked upstairs quietly. He reached his room and he heard one of the other door’s open, and that’s where he is this very moment.

 

“Hey.” Asher’s narrator-esque voice makes its way into Aleks’ ears and Aleks turns around.

  
“Hey.” Aleks says, praying to any and every deity for a lightning bolt to strike the house, killing him instantly. 

 

“I just wanted to see if we’re cool. After this morning, you know.” Asher says in a chill voice and Aleks finds it unfair that he’s not the calm one in this situation too.

 

“Oh, yeah, yeah. All good.” He nods and hopes that Asher will drop the fucking subject.

  
“Just wondering, what happened? You got out of there pretty quickly.” Asher says, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe of his own room.

 

“I thought I forgot to turn something in, so I had to run over and check.” Aleks lies, and that was such a bad lie, Aleks cringes internally.

 

“Alright. I just thought it had something to do with us calling you and James Trevor’s parents–”   
  
“Nope.” Aleks is sure that Asher wasn’t done talking, but the sentence is burned away just as quickly as Aleks set the dead grass on fire. He feels himself getting flustered. “I’m gonna go inside my room now. Bye.” He slides into his room and shuts the door behind him before Asher can respond. Aleks sighs and sits at his desk. 

 

_ I’m so fucking stupid. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hows it going! its me, your late boy.,. i know i update on weekends but i just forgot?? im sorry!!!
> 
> this is the chapter thats like. Really the rising action sorta and i was kinda nervous to actually post it so :)))) oh well!!! i started really getting back into this fic and im really excited because this is kind of my firstborn child now?? idk
> 
> i really hope you enjoyed reading and have a wonderful week!!! xx


	11. 11 / MISTAKES– LOTS OF THEM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go boys, im sorry that this is long and late, i hope you enjoy it anyways :)

After that day, it was twelve days before James had tried to talk to him. Not that Aleks was counting or anything.

 

Aleks can’t really blame him, as he didn’t make an effort to speak to him either. He did his best to act like everything was fine, which he likes to think that he’s doing a damn good job  after years of acting like everything really  _ was _ _. _ He was able to have conversations with the rest of the houseboys (Aleks finds himself using this term to refer to his housemates now. Pretty great, huh?), but James was the exception. He felt  _ nervous  _ around James _ , _ but not in the same way that James has made him feel the past seven or so months. Instead, when he sees James before he leaves for his classes, he feels the type of nervousness that makes you feel like you’re about to vomit, or die, or vomit and die.

 

Twelve days is pretty long, but Aleks felt like the last twelve days were even longer without James in his casual presence.    
  
That silence of twelve days ended on a certain Wednesday night. Aleks was working away at an English Literature essay that he’d been procrastinating on, as he fucking hated English Literature. The thought about how James would’ve been willing to help him on it- since it’s James’  _ damn _ major- nagged him for most of the duration that he worked on the essay. Well, the duration that he worked on it before he heard a knock at his closed door.

 

Expecting it to be Brett, he responded with a ‘come in’, turning off the music that was vibrating its’ way out of his phone. The door opened and Aleks felt a familiar feeling in his chest when it ended up to be…  _ Not-Brett _ .

 

“Hello.” James had said, still standing in the doorway. As James looked him over, Aleks felt 100 times more self-conscious in a t-shirt and some sweatpants that he was sure he hadn’t washed in at least a week, as he tried to think of the last time in the last week or so that he’s taken a long look at his own appearance. His hair started to feel greasy and his skin oily, all in the same five seconds that James had walked into the room. 

  
“Hey.” Aleks choked out, pushing his laptop off his lap and onto his bed. 

  
“What’s up?” James asked, and Aleks almost laughed, because it seemed like such a small talk question, but he didn’t laugh because none of this was funny and he felt like vomiting right then and there.

 

“Uh, not much. Just working on an essay for English.” He said, gesturing to his computer slightly.

 

“Need help?” James was leaning against the doorframe at this point slightly, his arms crossed across his chest. 

 

“No.” Aleks said before adding on very quickly, “I’m good. Thanks.” He smiled nervously as he started to feel himself burn up. He expected that to be the end of the conversation, so he pulled his laptop back onto his lap and continue to work on the stupid fucking essay. He didn’t look up but he was pretty sure that James was still standing there. He heard the door close again, and Aleks almost let out a breath of relief before James spoke up again.

 

“Did I do something, Aleks?” Aleks looked up to see James standing instead of his room now, the door shut. His arms were still crossed.

 

“No.” Aleks said, feeling like he was definitely ready to die at this point. He looked back to his computer. 

 

“Really?” James asked, disbelief in his voice. “I feel like you’ve been avoiding me.” Aleks didn’t look back up while he spoke this time.

 

“Lots of questions, huh?” Aleks chuckled nervously. At this point, he couldn’t focus on his essay, so he just pressed his fingers against the keyboard in completely random order to look occupied. 

 

“Yeah. It makes up for the week you’ve been avoiding me.” Aleks almost corrected him, saying  _ it was twelve days you piece of shit, now I know that time moves much slower for me when you aren’t here _ but Aleks just shrugged.

  
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”   
  
“You’re a bad liar. Can you look at me?”

 

“Nope.” Aleks’ face was probably burning red at this point.   
  
“Why not?”

 

“I’m working on my essay.” The random gibberish on his screen begun to appear more as he typed more frantically as he could  _ feel  _ James getting closer to him.

 

“I just wanna know what I did.” He can hear the frustration rising in James’ voice.

  
“You didn’t do anything.” Aleks felt like dying. Maybe if he wasn’t such a fucking idiot, this wouldn’t have happened.    
  
“God fucking damn it, Aleksandr!” James’ voice was raised more than before and Aleks winces. “You’re an  _ adult _ . You can talk about what’s bothering you.”   
  
“There’s nothing bothering me.” 

 

“Then how come you stormed out of the house and then avoid me for almost two weeks?” Aleks felt the bile rising in his throat as James asked that.  _ He changed the time, _ Aleks thought,  _ why did he change the time? _   
  
“Twelve days.”  **_Fuck._ ** Aleks thought to himself. He really just said that, huh?

 

“See? You’re aware of it.”

 

“I don’t get,” Aleks pushed his laptop back off his lap, now looking at his bed. “Why this matters to you.” 

 

James sighed. “You’re my  _ friend _ , Aleks. And I’d like to think that I’m yours too. Friends talk to each other. You’ve been talking with everyone else just fine, so  _ what the fuck did I do? _ ” 

 

“Nothing!” Aleks almost shouted, tensing up as he stared intensely at his bedsheets. He felt himself clench his fists. “You did nothing. Can you just… leave now? I want to work on my essay.” 

 

It was silent for a moment. To Aleks, it was silent for seven hundred years. Finally, James sighed again and the door was opened and then closed– no,  _ slammed _ – shut. Aleks grabbed his pillow and screamed into it for about ten seconds. He deleted all of the random letters and numbers he created on the document and then shut his computer.  _ I’ll do it later, _ he decided, placing it on the ground and throwing his blankets over himself.

 

That conversation was two days and three hours ago, and Aleks is still feeling like he’s about to throw up. Maybe it’s because of all the alcohol he’s consumed.

 

He’s at a party. He’s not too sure where it is. It could be at AH, due to all the green. Or maybe he’s in Ireland. Man, he must’ve gotten  _ so fucked up,  _ he went to Ireland. But it’s probably AH.

 

He’s pretty sure that the other houseboys came with, even  _ James _ . Although he doesn’t remember getting here, through the crowd of drunken college students, he can see James sitting on a couch in what probably is the living room, talking with someone. He has no idea who the someone is, but he can barely see them either. He wanders over to where Trevor is in the kitchen, holding up a red solo cup with his non-broken arm and leaning against the counter. 

 

“Hi, Trevy.” Aleks says, leaning up to swing his arm around the larger boy. 

 

“Oh, hi, Aleks. How are you?” Trevor asks and Aleks holds up a big thumbs up.

 

“I’m great! I have a question for you, buddy.” He says, patting the taller male’s chest. From what Aleks can see through his intoxicated vision, Trevor looks  _ very _ confused. If Aleks was sensible at this moment, he’d understand, but he’s not sensible so he doesn’t care. Aleks diverts Trevor’s glance to the couch with a laughing James on it. Aleks feels his heart go a little numb but ignores it, pointing in the direction in case Trevor doesn’t see him. “Do you know who’s sitting next to him?” 

 

“Oh, that’s Jakob. He’s my friend from middle school. He’s just visiting for the weekend and I decided to bring him here. I’m not too sure how you don’t remember this conversation, but it’s fine.” Aleks lets go of Trevor and looks at Jakob. He looks young, but also very tall, his legs stretching across the couch and onto James’ lap. It reminds him of when Aleks got tired while they were watching Dexter and Aleks would do the same thing, but James didn’t seem to mind too much. Aleks can’t help it when his heart pangs at the memory.

 

“Is he gay?” Aleks turns to look back to Trevor, who was in the middle of drinking from his cup. He looks a little caught off-guard from the question.

  
“What?” Trevor asks, moving the cup away from his mouth and setting it on the counter behind them.

 

“Or like, bi. Or whatever.” He says, looking at Jakob and James. Trevor doesn’t respond right away.

 

“Uh, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure he’s straight. He’s had a girlfriend before, I think–” 

 

Aleks interrupts him. “You think he’s into James?” James is talking with his wide and lovable grin on his face, and Aleks can’t help but wonder what it’s about. In fact, at this moment, all Aleks wants is for James to talk to him instead. 

 

“No? I don’t really know where you would get  _ that  _ from what I just said–”

 

Aleks interrupts him again. If Aleks was a little less drunk, he would see that Trevor is getting a little annoyed at this point. “You should ask him.” 

 

“Maybe later, Aleks.” Trevor says and Aleks can see James laugh again, and Aleks can only wonder why he didn’t just kiss the damn fool before he made everything awkward by not being able to express emotions correctly. He feels Trevor’s stare on the side of his head now. “Why do you wanna know so bad?”

 

“Why do  _ you  _ wanna know so bad?” Aleks says, turning back towards Trevor and poking him on the shoulder.

 

“I mean, you did just come up to me and ask if someone that you don’t know is trying to fuck James.”

 

“I didn’t say  _ fuck him! _ ” Aleks exclaims, earning one or two glances around them but Aleks couldn’t care less.

 

“Anyways,” Trevor was holding in a laugh. What a cuck. “You got a little defensive there. What’s been going on with my mom and dad? You tell the truth when you’re super drunk, so go ahead.” 

 

“I’m the worst mom.” Aleks says, looking down at the somewhat dirty flooring below them. “I like James, full homo.”

 

“Yes!” Trevor exclaims and before Aleks can ask what his problem is, he starts talking again. “Joe and Asher owe me thirty bucks.”   
  
“What the fuck?” 

 

“I mean, uh.” Trevor coughs. “Congrats, man. I’m really glad you told me.”   
  
“What is the thirty bucks thing about?”   
  
“Oh, that? Well. Um. Joe thought that you didn’t have a crush on James, and Asher thought you were dating already, and I thought you did have a crush on him. So, we made a bet.”

 

“You were  _ betting? _ When did it start?” 

 

“After Halloween? You know, after I cockblocked you while drunk.”

 

“You  _ remember _ that? You fucking dick!” Aleks shouts, shoving him a little.

 

“I guess I can’t really tell them that they owe me thirty bucks because I wouldn’t wanna out you.”    
  
“I don’t really care if you do. I just can’t believe that you’ve been in a fucking  _ bet _ about whether or not I have a crush on James _ for seven months _ .”

 

“So is that why you were all freaked out when Asher called you guys my parents?” Trevor drops the topic and Aleks doesn’t care too much.

 

“I stormed out and then I got too embarrassed to talk to him about it.” Aleks admits. “God, that sounds so damn stupid out loud.” 

 

“It didn’t sound stupid in your head?” 

 

“You know, you guys are never helpful.”   
  
“I know.” Trevor responds and the conversation ends there as Aleks can’t help but to look back at James. 

 

James was in the middle of what looked like punching Jakob in the shoulder, the grin still on his face. He said something to Jakob and looked directly at Aleks. Aleks doesn’t know if his mind is just making this up because Aleks is just  _ that _ hopeless, but he’s pretty sure that James is staring back at him right now. Aleks is also pretty sure that James is drunk, due to the multiple empty cans of beer on the table in front of him and the fact that the number of cans had almost doubled since the last time he looked at him. Aleks feels his face turn red (just because James was looking at him– _ goddamn, he’s a mess _ ) and Aleks can only wonder,  _ Where’s my heterosexuality when I need it _ but he realizes that he’s never had it in the first place and it’s probably about a full twenty seconds before Aleks turns his head to look back at Trevor, who was now onto a different subject completely.

 

For Aleks, the rest of the time he spent at the party was uneventful. He just got more drunk, making him even more blacked out than he was before.

 

All the houseboys walked home, but absolutely none of them were sober. Not even James.

 

Aleks remembers Trevor and James waving goodbye to Jakob. Aleks didn’t know what time it was when they got home, but he didn’t feel incredibly tired just yet. He laid in his bed for what felt like an eternity, until he stood up. Aleks had no idea what he was doing anymore (as if he ever did). His vision was blurry and he could barely walk straight. He feels as if lately he hasn’t been able to do anything too straight anymore.

 

His stupid ass ends up in James’ room. He wasn’t there, but guessing from the light coming through the crack in the bottom of his bathroom door, James was in the bathroom. Aleks sits on his bed and he thinks about how comfortable James’ bed is. The bathroom door is open and James is standing there with a t-shirt and some sweatpants on and  _ his hair is down _ . 

 

“Aleks, what are you–” James’s words are slurred a little as he begins to ask a question– probably something like ‘what are you doing here’– but, it looks like Aleks will never know, because he’s already standing in front of James, and then Aleks cups his face and pulls him down a little to his height and he’s kissing him now. 

 

Aleks still wasn’t tired, and only more adrenaline rushed through him when he feels James kiss him back.  _ He’s kissing James and James is kissing him. _ James’ hands are on his hips now, and a soft noise erupts from Aleks’ throat because  _ James is now touching him _ and all of this is so much better than what Aleks has ever thought or dreamed of. His senses are so much more heightened from adrenaline or alcohol or something– Aleks isn’t too sure– and before he knows it, he’s laying on his back on James’ bed and they’re still kissing and Aleks realizes that he could most likely get drunk off of James’ touch alone, the press of James’ lips against Aleks’ neck and skin and everywhere could be something so addicting that Aleks should be scared or nervous even, but for once, he’s not. 

 

Aleks runs his hands up the back of James’ t-shirt and James moves away for Aleks to pull off his shirt like that. James pulls off Aleks’ hoodie and his shirt underneath that and he moves further away to look down at Aleks, and Aleks looks up at James. Aleks is panting a little and James’ somewhat foggy stare is still on him. Aleks reaches his arms up and pulls James back down to kiss him harder.

 

It’s like this for a couple of minutes until James pulls away and starts to kiss at his neck more, even biting at it, causing quite the reaction from Aleks. Aleks brings his hand up to James’ hair, running his hand through his long hair that Aleks has literally  _ dreamt _ of and it’s so much better than Aleks ever could have imagined. James continues to kiss down Aleks’ chest, stomach, and then he reaches the waistband of his pants and sits up again, making Aleks whine.

  
“You wanna do this?” James asks, his voice deepened from lust that makes Aleks shiver a bit.

 

“Hell fuckin’ yeah.” Aleks grins and James returns a similar grin before tugging Aleks’ pants down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whwow this was. a lot. 
> 
> thank you so much for reading as always and have an amazing week!!!


	12. 12 / FUCK! (TIMES TWO)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well :^) enjoy

Aleks wakes up, his head burning with the passion of a thousand suns and his entire body aching like he was hit by a bus. He hasn’t opened his eyes yet, but it feels too cold already, so if Trevor broke the heater, Aleks  _ swears to God– _

 

He hears some rustling next to him. He opens his right eye first, and then his left, and this is most  _ certainly _ not Aleks’ bedroom, but instead, it’s James’. His mouth goes dry and tries reassuring himself that this might be a repeat of what happened on New Year’s– getting drunk, calling James and climbing into his bed. But no matter how many times he tries to deny it, he can feel James’ arm across Aleks’ bare waist, and Aleks feels… different in comparison to the other times he’s woken up from a hangover. Much more achy, and oh, what’s that? Aleks lifts up the covers and he’s  _ fucking naked and there are hickeys all over his chest and neck _ and Aleks has to leave immediately and never show his face ever again to anyone.

 

Aleks tenses up even more when he hears James sigh and his grip on Aleks’ waist loosens a bit. He tries to smoothly roll off the bed without making a noise, and it doesn’t go bad this time. He stands up slowly and leans over to grab his boxers that were laying on the ground of James’ room. The pile of clothes looks haphazardly thrown onto the ground as if the clothes were meant to be off in a rush–  _ Aleks, this isn’t important right now, _ Aleks yells at himself as he pulls the boxers on, picking up what could possibly be his shirt and pants. Aleks is too sore and hungover to care, and he just knows that he has to leave, so he tugs the items of clothing on without looking twice. 

 

He looks over to James, who’s laying on his stomach unbothered, and his heartbeat quickens at mach speed. His hair is spread across his back along with some noticeable scratches up and down his unclothed back and Aleks can only think  _ damn, I did that _ and then, he thinks it again, in horror this time,  _ fuck, I did that _ , because the realization that Aleks has really just slept with his best friend and long time crush after not talking to him for however long, and Aleks  _ really  _ has to leave this time. 

 

He maneuvers his way towards the steps quietly, or as quietly as he can. He reaches the stairs when he hears a sigh and he tenses. He stays still for at least 20 seconds to see if James was still asleep. He’s about to move until James’ voice, low and tired, makes its’ way to Aleks’ ears.

 

“Leaving?” He turns around and James is standing now, pulling on basketball shorts and a different t-shirt from the one on the ground as he awaited for an answer. When he was done, he crossed arms are over his chest, and blatant disappointment on his face that makes Aleks’ insides rot like the inside of a pumpkin _.  _ “Nah, makes sense.” James says dismissively and Aleks can feel his defense levels rising.

 

“Explain what you mean by that.” Aleks tries to swallow the knot in his throat as he talks.

  
“It’s just what you do. You’ll avoid anything when it comes to confrontation. That probably has something to do with when you stormed out of the house that one time, before, you know. Avoiding me.” James shrugs and Aleks almost winces. From what Aleks likes to think he knows about James, he normally gets much more vocal when he’s angry, like when they’d play video games and he would be losing or when Trevor would be especially stupid. But this side of James just reeks of disappointment. James is  _ disappointed _ in him, and he feels awful.

 

“You didn’t try and talk to me either, for the record. Talking is a two person effort.” Aleks mumbles, his hands bunching up into fists.

 

“I tried giving you space because you were avoiding me, Aleks. It’s not that hard to see that you are.” He says. “Also, I did try to talk to you, but that worked out, well, didn’t it?” Aleks doesn’t know where to look anymore, so he just stares intently at the ground. James is quiet and so is Aleks, and it’s like that for what feels like years. He knows he should just get the fuck upstairs, but he feels like his feet are glued to the ground. “Do you,” Aleks glances up and James seems much more anxious. “Do you remember anything from last night?” 

 

Aleks almost laughs except he’s not too sure why he wants to. Maybe it’s because of how completely  _ fucking stupid  _ this entire situation is. “I think I can take a lucky guess.” 

 

“Yeah.” James says and Aleks can only think about spontaneously combusting into flames right about now.

 

“We can just,” Aleks inhales. “Forget about it. All of this.”

 

“Is that what you want?” He asks and Aleks is so close to saying  _ no, not at all _ and  _ I just want to stay in bed with you  _ and  _ I wish I could remember what your lips feel like on mine _ but Aleks takes interest into the floor again.  _ Why can’t I just talk like a normal fucking person? _

 

“I-I mean, we were just drunk. Stuff like this happens. It’s best to just forget about it.” Aleks can’t think of a time that he’s hated himself more than right now.

 

“Okay, so you regret it?” James asks and Aleks dies.

 

“I-I didn’t say that–” Aleks stutters out weakly, but he stops him.

  
“No, I get it, Aleks. You don’t have to pity me. I get it, alright?” He sighs. “I think it’d be best for you to go back upstairs.” 

 

Aleks was getting angry again and was about to say something like ‘you’re not my parent, I can do whatever I want’ to him, but he looks back up and James looks so  _ sad  _ and  _ heartbroken _ and he wants to speak, but he just can’t. Fuck. He can’t. 

 

Instead, he walks up the stairs, shutting the door behind him. He’s not too sure what time it is, but he looks up to see Brett and Joe sitting on the couch and Aleks feels like dying more. Brett looks at him and he seems incredibly amused.

 

“Good morning.” Brett says and Aleks just glares at him. “Wow, what’s the problem? Wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Well, judging from the way you look, wake up on the wrong side of someone else’s bed? Oh, nice shirt by the way. I’m glad you and James made up.” Aleks continues to glare at Brett before looking down at his shirt after Brett’s comment and groaning to himself. 

 

He was more focused on leaving instead of focusing on whether it was his shirt or not. Aleks is wearing James’ infamous Bullet Club shirt he likes wearing so much (Aleks now realizes why he likes wearing it, since it’s comfortable, but that’s not really important, since James probably doesn’t want to look at him ever again). Brett laughs behind his hand and Aleks has half a mind to hop over a peaceful Joe and sock him in the face, but instead, he grabs a water from the fridge and stomps his way up to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay for fighting!!! 
> 
> thank you so much for reading and i hoped you enjoyed, have a wonderful week!! <3


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